


Death Rattles

by emmbrancsxx0



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Horror, Bottom Dean, Castiel's Grace, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Hallucinations, Haunting, Horror, Human Castiel, M/M, Men of Letters, Newly Human Castiel, POV Castiel, Psychological Horror, Suspense, Top Castiel, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, because it's a fic that i wrote so of course there are, i mean not really human more like, low on grace castiel, referenced to Michael!Dean, references to mental illness, wanted to write a spooky fic for halloween so here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 08:01:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16445948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmbrancsxx0/pseuds/emmbrancsxx0
Summary: Castiel and Dean travel to an abandoned Men of Letters chapter house to catalogue the books in its library. Castiel comes to believe the house is haunted.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said in the tags, I wanted to write a spooky lil horror fic for Halloween this year, and (in true Mallory fashion) looks like I made it just in time with only a day to spare! This is my first ever attempt at writing horror, even though it's one of my favorite genres, so I hope you all enjoy. It was a delight to write! Happy Halloween :)

“Dean?”

There was no answer. Dean stood still and silent in front of the tall window at the end of the dark hall. The faint silver moonlight that managed to find its way out from behind the trickling clouds outlined in from his ankles to the top of his head. There was a smattering of raindrops on the glass; they zigzagged downwards in chaotic slow motion.

Castiel squinted at him from the other end of the hallway, and he could almost make out Dean’s reflection in the glass, but it was too transparent.

“Dean?” he asked again, sighing in relief. He wasn’t sure where Dean had gone when he’d woken up alone in bed. It was late, or far too early. Dean, when he finally managed to fall asleep, usually slept through the night—even now, even with the nightmares Michael left in his wake.

There was still no answer. Dean appeared to have not heard him. He kept staring out the window, and Castiel wasn’t sure what he was looking at. He considered the possibility of Dean sleepwalking, but that was unlike him.

He didn’t know why, but the relief began to steal away from him. It left in its place a kind of chill that made the back of his neck prickle. It was a human sensation, a reaction to fear—that feeling that someone was standing right behind you, just out sight. It was an evolutionary byproduct of survival, and it was currently needless. Castiel was still an angel. And this was Dean. He had no reason to be afraid.

Carefully, he started down the hall towards Dean. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

Still nothing. It should have been frustrating. Perhaps, in the daylight, it might have been. But that cold dread was pushing it’s way up Castiel’s throat. When he tried to speak again, his voice sounded thick with it. “Dean. What are you looking at?”

The broad shoulders of Dean’s silhouette began to sway. Castiel didn’t know why that made his heart stutter, or why he’d suddenly stopped walking. Gradually, Dean tilted his head to one side, bending his neck until his ear nearly touched his shoulder. He slowly brought it back up again, and then angled it to the opposite side; then back to the center. 

Castiel swallowed, but it didn’t shake loose the lump in his throat. He barely heard his own voice when he forced out, “Dean?”

The sensation at his back was too great now. It felt as if there were a hand reaching out to him, hovering just out of touch, not yet grazing his spine through the thin layer of his t-shirt.

Too slowly, Dean began turning his head. The air tripped past Castiel’s lips and he suddenly wished he hadn’t drawn Dean’s attention. 

Dean’s darkened profile was just coming into view, the tip of his nose against the rain on the window.

Castiel wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He opened his mouth—to tell Dean to stop, to say still, to never move again. He took in a deep breath and— 

The opening guitar riff of a heavy metal song woke him with a start. 

He gasped awake, into the bright sunlight warming him through the Impala’s windows. Dean was looking at him out of the corner of his eyes from the driver’s seat, a slanted grin on his face. Obviously, he’d blasted the music to pull Castiel from sleep. Because gingerly shaking a person’s shoulder wasn’t Dean’s preferred method, despite the fact that Castiel still wasn’t accustomed to waking up—or to falling asleep in the first place. He should be more considerate.

Besides, if Castiel had ever woken Dean up so violently, he would have probably gotten himself shot.

Maybe that was the reason Castiel’s heart was hammering against his sternum. Sleep was once again new to him. It came unexpectedly in the passenger seat of the Impala. 

He took a second to reorient himself back into consciousness. He looked down at his hands and flexed them into and out of fists. He could feel the skin tightening again, feel the stiff bones and cartilage shift and crack. He was aligned with his vessel again, this body his own. 

Apparently satisfied that Castiel was awake and staying that way, Dean reached for the stereo and turned the volume lower. “Mornin’, sunshine,” he said brightly. “Or, you know. Afternoon.”

Castiel sniffed, and ran his hand down his face in attempt to rid himself of the sleepiness. “How long was I—?” 

“Couple hours.” 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Dean shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. He leaned forward towards the windshield, as if to see better, as he made a turn from the main road onto a narrow street lined with the dense woodland of the Adirondacks. “No, it’s cool. You needed some sleep.”

Castiel looked down at his lap, at the borrowed pair of blue jeans he was wearing. He didn’t need sleep. He was an angel. He _was_ an angel. Now? He wasn’t so sure. Ever since Naomi closed heaven to keep what few angels remained inside, his powers had been slowly draining. It was like this the last time he was cut off from heaven. His grace faded incrementally, and then all at once. 

“What were you dreaming about, anyway? You were breathing pretty hard. Dreaming about me, Cas?” Despite his joke, Dean sounded concerned.

Castiel opened his mouth, ready to describe his dream, but then he found the memory missing. It had been there a moment ago. But now, try as he might, he couldn’t recall a single detail. “I—I can’t remember.” 

Dean didn’t seem too shaken by that fact. “Well, we should get you a dream journal.” He made another turn, this one onto a private road that led them to a large iron gate in a high stone wall. On the other side of the gate, there were only more trees and a small paved road that went on for as far as he could see in the foliage. “Looks like this is it.”

Dean got out of the car. Through the windshield, Castiel watched him walk towards the gate and put his bunker key in the keyhole. He pushed back both sides of the gate in turn, and the doors swung open with ancient creaks. It had been years since anyone had gone there, long before the United States Men of Letters ended. And it was unlikely many vagrants or hikers would go inside. The wall was too tall, and, while it was theoretically close enough to town for people to easily get to it, Castiel didn’t know why anyone would do so. They were at the mountain summit. He didn’t have to look at a map to know that. He could feel it in thinning air, the way the trees touched the sky.

He was still an angel. 

The driveway went on for a little over a mile. An old gothic style manor sat at the end of it in a clearing in the trees. It was two stories tall and its square-footage must have been in the low thousands. Its face was made of gray stone and wood, with ivy running up the walls. Tall windows peered down over the expansive grounds overlooking the mountain range. The section above the main door came to a steepled roof, and a turret sat in the middle of the bend in the house.

They took in the sight of the house for a long pause before Dean killed the engine. “Okay. Home sweet home,” he said.

Castiel blinked away from the house, away from the darkness he could see through the windows. “We’ll only be here a few days, Dean. A week at most.”

Dean huffed. “It’s an expression, Cas,” he muttered before opening his door and hefting out of the driver’s seat. The car shook slightly when he closed it, and Castiel followed from his side. It felt good to stretch his legs, and his spine popped slightly in two places to rid itself of the stiffness. They’d been in the car for a long time.

Dean was already at the trunk, his hand on the lid as he peered up at the house. “Who’d Sammy say lived here again?”

“Uh, the Chancellor of the United States Men of Letters. It used to be chapter house before that. It’s been abandoned since the early thirties.” He walked over to the trunk and watched Dean sift through the weapons and talismans. Castiel wasn’t certain why he was packing so much into the weapons duffle. It wasn’t as if they were there for a hunt. 

“Why?” 

Castiel tried to remember what Sam had told him when he’d asked that same question. “The Great Depression,” he answered shortly. It had something to do with the funding to keep the house’s staff and caretakers on drying up. It had instead become something of a records hall. Files and rare supernatural objects were locked inside for safekeeping. It was why they were there. They’d found a record of the house in the bunker’s basement, and Sam had sent them there to catalogue what was inside. 

But there was another reason, too: Michael. They didn’t even know where he was, much less what to do if they found him. He’d gone strangely silent in recent weeks, which set them all on edge. But it also gave them time to figure out “a game plan,” as Dean called it. If there were an answer on how to find and kill an archangel without another to wield the blade, it could be somewhere inside this house. 

“Uh-huh,” Dean said, nonplussed. “And the Chancellor? What happened to him?” 

Castiel knitted his brows together. He hadn’t asked that question, and he didn’t know if Sam had an answer. “I assume he’s dead by now.” 

Dean sighed heavily at that and straightened out. He closed the false bottom in the trunk and tossed the duffle over his shoulder. The other two duffle bags, with their clothes and toiletries, were still inside. There was the cooler, too, loaded with enough food for a few days, until they would have to run into town for more. 

“Okay. So, we got an abandoned mansion that no one’s stepped foot in in like, eighty years. Should’a brought some rat poison.” He paused, looking back at the house. “Place kinda creeps me out. You don’t think there are any spirits in there? All those artifacts—maybe they picked up a cursed object or two.”

Castiel looked over his shoulder, back at the dark windows. Despite the sun, he couldn’t see anything inside. “It’s just a house, Dean. Besides, it’s too heavily warded.”

“What, you can sense that? Even with your batteries low?”

“No.” He looked back at Dean, trying not to show is hurt at the reminder. “But it’s a Men of Letters location, so I think it’s safe to assume.” 

“Yeah, well, I’m still bringing rock salt.” Dean patted the duffle on his side, and he didn’t look happy. “Still don’t know why Sam couldn’t’a come with.” 

Castiel tried to hide his feelings over that, too, but he was certain some of it passed over his face. He shouldn’t have felt that way. Sam and Dean had been apart for months; of course Dean wanted to stick with his brother, now more than ever. After all he’d been through, Castiel couldn’t blame him. But there was still a piece of him, as unreasonable as it was, that wished Dean wanted to spend that much time with him, too. Alone, just the two of them. Castiel had been looking forward to this trip, even if it was just for work. He was looking forward to being with Dean without the ruckus of the bunker and the hunters inside. 

He thought Dean had felt the same. He didn’t want this to be a chore. 

And Sam was busy, anyway, leading their burgeoning network of hunters, training them, sending them off to every corner of America like soldiers—Dean and Castiel included. They needed him in the bunker, holding down the fort, keeping things running. He was good at it. 

“Yes, well, you’ll just have to make due with me.”

Dean must have noticed how his words had affected Castiel, because his expression flashed with guilt, then softened. He leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to Castiel’s lips. It instantly put Castiel at ease, and told him that Dean _did_ want to spend alone time with him. When the kiss broke, Dean said, “I think I’ll make due just fine. Besides, it might me fun getting away from all the kids for a while. It’ll be like a honeymoon.” 

“Dean, everyone in the bunker is an adult, and we aren’t married. How can we have a honeymoon?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Fine. Honeymoon stage.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes. “We’ve known each other too long for that.”

“Okay, whatever. We can have as much loud sex as we want!”

Castiel thought he could accept that answer. He felt himself smiling as he brought his hand up to Dean’s shoulder and kissed him again. The sensation of Dean’s mouth moving against his, the gentle pull of his lips and the sighs puffing out of him, still managed to light Castiel up from the inside. He thought it always might; it would never stop, for as long as they both lived. It wasn’t just the newness of it, the fact that this had only been happening for a few weeks. 

When they kissed, Castiel forgot all about his fading grace. He felt stronger and more holy than ever before.

Dean patted his chest once before pulling away. “All right, easy, tiger. I didn’t mean out here. Let’s at least find a bedroom first.” He hoisted the slipping duffle back over his shoulder. “Now, c’mon. You bring the stuff inside. I’ll go find the circuit breaker and get us up and running.” 

The inside of the house was just what Castiel had imagined: a few inches of dust on every surface, carpets faded from the sunshine coming through the windows, white sheets over the furniture, spider webs and rat droppings, a few broken window panes and warped floorboards. They spent the rest of the day stocking the fridge and cleaning as much as they could. The white sheets got torn off and taken outside to let the late autumn winds shake them out. The tabletops and light fixtures were dusted. The sheets on the bed they were staying in were changed.

In truth, the house was in better condition than Castiel expected. There wasn’t any mold anywhere, no large animals had gotten inside, and save for a few leaks there wasn’t much water damage. 

Castiel finished putting their clothes away in the closet of their bedroom and headed back towards the grand stairwell towards the front of the house. Or at least, that was where he thought he was going. He was still catching his bearings in the unfamiliar layout, and the house was much more of a maze on the inside than it looked on the outside. He must have made a wrong turn. 

He ended up in a dead end hallway that ran along the back of the house. There were doors to three bedrooms along the walls. A tall window, nearly floor to ceiling, was at the end of the long, straight hall. It made Castiel pause. There was something familiar about that window. Something strange swept over him—a chilled kind of numbness. He’d never experienced it before, but he thought it might be what humans refer to as déjà vu. 

It was nothing. Just a trick of the mind. He’d been in dozens of old houses over the years with Sam and Dean, whether it was for a haunting or something else. He must have seen something similar in the past, and his memory was dredging it up. Even if it wasn’t, it was a window and a hallway. All human architecture looked vaguely uniform no matter where they were. 

Still, he found himself pacing tentatively down the hall, one foot in front of the other, headed towards the window. He wanted to see what it overlooked. It was an urge that spurred him on, while something else in his gut tried to pull him away. He needed to know.

“Hey, Cas! Get down here!” 

Castiel jumped slightly at Dean’s voice from downstairs. Whatever compulsion that had overcome him suddenly evaporated. He rattled his head, feeling stupid, and turned around to find his way downstairs. 

He followed Dean’s voice to a room on the opposite side of the house. Two large wooden doors opened up to an expansive room lined with elaborate bookshelves on every side. Thousands of dusty tomes were lined up, filling every space, along with cases of relics and objects. Inside them, Castiel saw some amulets and jewelry, some weapons, carved totems, and even some preserved bones. A giant skylight took up most of the ceiling, letting the sunlight drift lazily through.

They certainly had a big job in front of them cataloguing and making sense of all this.

There was a sudden rattling, startling whoosh, and Castiel found Dean on a moving ladder along the bookshelves. He’d pushed himself with all his might towards the opposite side, riding it like he was a child on a jungle jim. “Pretty awesome, huh?” he said when the ladder slowed, and he jumped off from the second rung. “I found some more boxes of this stuff down in the basement when I was turning on the electricity.”

“You seem awfully excited about reading, Dean,” Castiel teased as Dean walked closer.

“Pssht. Yeah right. Thought I’d leave the nerd shit to you.” He filled the space between them and wrapped his arms around Castiel’s waist. “You see those knives over there? That’s more my speed.” 

That hardly seemed fair. “You’re joking. There have to over three thousand books in this library alone, Dean. Who’s to say what else we’ll find in the rest of the house?”

“Guess you better get started.” A smirk pulled at his lips. “Tomorrow. Think we did enough work for one day. I got other plans for tonight.”

Castiel raised a brow, interested. “What plans?”

Dean swayed a little, rocking Castiel at the hips. “I was thinkin’ dinner, get in bed and watch a movie on my laptop.” He slowly crowded in and placed a lingering kiss on Castiel’s jaw. Castiel let his eyes slip closed into it. When Dean spoke again, he felt the words forming against his skin: “Ignore the movie on my laptop.” 

“I like that plan.” 

When Dean straightened out again, his smile was much brighter. “Yeah?”

Castiel felt himself light up again. “Yeah.”

 

///

 

As it turned out, they didn’t even make it to putting on a movie. Castiel was pretty sure Dean had turned on his laptop. He faintly remembered hearing the sound it made whenever it powered on, but if it had happened, the laptop had been discarded somewhere, it’s screen now black as it kicked into sleep mode.

Dean was straddling Castiel’s lap, his hands holding Castiel’s jaw as they met in another kiss. Castiel’s arms were wrapped underneath Dean’s, has hands ending at the curve of Dean’s bare shoulders, fingers cupped around the bones and muscles. He felt them shift beneath the skin when Dean dipped down to suck a mark into Castiel’s neck.

Castiel hummed and angled his head to give better access. The two of them were stripped down to their boxers, and every time Dean moved on his lap, the friction it caused made him seek out more. He pushed down on Dean’s shoulders in attempt to achieve that, but it only caused more frustration than relief. He could feel Dean’s erection whenever Dean languidly rolled his hips into Castiel’s belly.

He brought his hand between them and palmed at the front of Dean’s underwear. It caused Dean to stop kissing him, but it was worth it to hear the ragged sounds Dean was making against the crook of his neck. Dean’s nose nuzzled into the dip in his collarbone, his mouth wet and breaths hot against the skin there. He began to rock into Castiel’s touch, every motion dragging out sparks on Castiel’s strained nerve endings. It wasn’t long until he felt a wet patch against the fabric of Dean’s boxers. 

Wordless, Dean shimmed back a little, giving himself room to reach into Castiel’s boxers. Castiel gasped and twitched at the first graze of warm fingers. Dean pushed the fabric away before running his thumb over Castiel’s head a few times, making him slick. He formed a gentle fist and worked him up and down. 

A moan that sounded more like Dean’s name than anything else escaped him. The latter half of it was swallowed into Dean’s mouth. “I love you,” Castiel told him when the kiss broke, and Dean gave a delirious chuckle. 

“You stole my line.” 

Dean stopped touching him just long enough to take himself out of his boxers and line his erection up against Castiel’s. Both of their breath tripped as they touched, and Dean slowly started pumping them both in one fist. Castiel tried to control his breathing, attempting to lengthen his stamina. He was already starting to feel himself tip over the edge, his muscles going taut in turn and his heart rate speeding up. His body begged for release, but he knew Dean wasn’t there yet; he wasn’t yet making the low, rough sounds he usually does before he comes. Castiel wanted to keep up pace with him, to keep this going for as long as Dean needed.

He didn’t want it to be over yet. 

But Dean’s touch was too wildly good, working him in the just the right way at just the right speed. It seemed Dean always knew just what to do to drive Castiel to his wits end. Unable to focus on reeling himself in and keeping himself upright beneath Dean’s divine hands, he laid down on the mattress, the back of his head sinking into his pillow.

His hands, the traitorous things they were, had their own ideas about extending his libido. One of them gripped Dean’s thigh tightly. The other wrapped itself around Dean’s fist and added to the pressure and the friction. He heard Dean give a choked out sound, and it was almost enough for him to lose it. 

Dean shifted slightly, bending down low over Castiel, his free hand moving to the side of Castiel’s head to brace himself. Castiel lifted himself up enough to catch Dean’s lips.

“Fuck, Cas,” Dean breathed, and his throat started working to make those tiny, wrecked noises. He was close. Castiel thought he might be able to let himself go at this point. He stopped trying to hold himself back. He let himself focus on the slide of their hands; he let his eyes lock with Dean’s. 

It must have been only a few seconds for his breath to turn sharp and his skin to hum. He felt his orgasm building slow, starting in his toes and rolling its way upward. Dean must have known it was imminent. He always knew. He strained to bend down further to press a quick kiss to the corner of Castiel’s mouth.

“Let it out, baby.”

It was the only thing Castiel needed to spill over. He was still riding out the waves when he felt Dean lock up on top of him, and the warmth of his release on Castiel’s stomach.

After, they took a few seconds to catch their breath before Dean slid off of him to the right side of the bed. They hadn’t even discussed who would be taking which side. It was simply known. Dean had the right side and home; Castiel had the left. Those assignments translated to this bed, too.

Dean gave a breath that sounded like “whoo,” and Castiel grinned as a satisfied hum of laughter puffed out of his throat. They rolled onto their sides and turned into each other, and kissed slow, unhurried, less heated than before but nice in its own right. Castiel still felt lightheaded. It didn’t help that Dean slid his thigh between Castiel’s legs and made the still sensitive skin jump. 

“Not as loud as we could’a been,” Dean said, the whites of his eyes shining in the soft light of the bedside lamp behind him. “Think we can do better next time.”

Castiel smiled and kissed him one more time. “I’ll go get something to clean us up.”

Dean nodded. “We haven’t used the bathroom up here yet, so there still might be some air in the pipes. Let it run for a couple seconds before you do anything.” 

“Okay.” And perhaps the last kiss wasn’t the last, because Castiel couldn’t stop himself from pecking Dean’s lips again before getting out of bed. He moved out of the bedroom, into the hallway where the bathroom was. He could feel Dean’s appreciative eyes on him until he was out of sight.

“Hate to see you go, love to watch you leave, Cas!” Dean called happily.

“Be quiet!” Castiel yelled back, despite the way his lips curved upwards.

Dean’s bark of laughter followed him down the hall.

 

///

 

He didn’t know what had woken him up, if you could even call this state wakefulness. He must have just come out of his REM cycle in sleep, and he was conscious just long enough for his eyes to flutter open and see the moonlight coming in through the curtains before his eyelids fell heavy again. He pressed up against Dean’s side, his head on Dean’s shoulder and the tip of his nose against his neck. Dean was still asleep, his chest under Castiel’s hand rising and falling in steady breaths.

Castiel grunted a little in annoyance at having woken up before cuddling closer to Dean. As much as he loathed the hours he now had to waste on sleeping, he wanted to get back to it. Besides, it was a nice excuse to lay next to Dean like this. He both cursed these hours and reveled in them. 

He felt the beta waves easing back into his mind, pulling him willingly back into the undertow, when the corner of the mattress near his feet dipped. It was like someone had sat down on the end of bed. But they were the only two people in the house. 

Castiel was no longer tired. Adrenaline spiked in his heart, and whatever wisps of his grace remained charged itself in the tips of his fingers. He opened his eyes, Dean still sound asleep beside him. Something like ice overcame him, and there was a warning buzzing at the back of his neck. He swallowed hard, steadying himself. Slowly, he tightened his fist on Dean’s chest, ready to make a move. 

Trying for the element of surprise, he quickly looked around. And there was nothing. No one. The end of the bed was empty. He sighed as he sat up against his pillow, and scrubbed his hand down his face. His mind must have invented it in its exhaustion. Sleep was a strange thing. 

Just to be sure, he blinked towards the open door of the bedroom to his left. It was vacant, too. His guard down, he bleary scanned the rest of the room, and looked back to the moonlit window on Dean’s side of the room.

He jumped, his breath coming out in a strangled gasp. The shadowed outline of a man was standing against the window facing them. His features were lost to the blackness of the room, and Castiel’s diminished grace kept him from seeing in the dark. 

Swiftly, he turned around and practically threw himself to the lamp on the bedside table, nearly knocking it over in the process of turning it on.

Dean gasped awake and sat up, gun clutched in hand and safety already off from where it had been stashed under his pillow. He aimed it straight ahead at the end of the bed.

The whole thing must have taken three seconds at most. 

Castiel looked across the room, but the figure was no longer there. He breathed, attempting to ease his own heart rate. Dean, now fully conscious and aware that there was no threat, grunted and clicked the safety of his pistol back into place. He held the butt of it against his temple and skewed his eyes shut. 

“What the hell, Cas?” he grated out, holding his fingers against his eyes as if to shield them from the light.

Castiel blinked at the window, and did another sweep of the room. No one was there. 

“I—Nothing. I thought—.” He shook his head, embarrassed. “I must have been dreaming.” 

Dean sighed and dropped his hands into his lap. He swiveled to tuck his gun back under his pillow. More gently now, he said, “You okay?”

Castiel wanted to say he wasn’t, but that would have been silly. He nodded instead. “Yes, I—.”

Dean didn’t let him finish. His voice was hard again. “Good. Goodnight.” 

He was already on his side, his back to Castiel and the light, pulling the covers back over his shoulder. Castiel swallowed again, but at least his heart was no longer hammering. He turned off the lamp, but not before he took the time to glance at the window again. 

Satisfied that they were alone, he settled back into bed. But he stayed on his side, facing the window. He watched it for a long time before drifting back into sleep.

 

///

 

The next morning, Castiel followed the wafting scent of cooking bacon into the kitchen. Dean was standing at the old wood burning stove, pushing scrambled eggs around a cast iron skillet. His neck was bent to the side as he held his phone between his ear and shoulder. “Yeah, we found a bunch of them yesterday. There’s like, a whole library. I’m telling you, you’d be jizzing your pants right now if you saw it.”

There was a brief pause into which Castiel heard the faint sounds of the person on the other end speaking. From the cadence of the voice and the things Dean was saying, there was only one person he could have been talking to. And then Dean said, “No, we didn’t get to any of it yet . . . Okay, sue me. We had like a sixteen-hour drive. We needed to sleep . . . Yeah, we did some of that, too. Broke in the bed real good.”

Castiel could hear Dean’s sly grin around the words. He came up behind Dean’s back and put his hands on Dean’s hips. He planted a kiss on Dean’s shoulder through his t-shirt. Over the phone, Sam made a sound of disgust, and said something that sounded like, “Really, Dean? I don’t need the gory details.” 

“Hey, you’re the one who brought it up.”

Castiel leaned forward and said against the phone, “Hello, Sam.”

Dean straightened out his neck and grabbed his phone, putting it on speaker just in time for Sam to say, “’Morning, Cas.” His voice turned more annoyed when he directed at Dean, “Just start looking through those books today, okay, Dean? Think you can do that?”

Dean huffed. “Yes, Mr. Strickland. _Jeez_.” And then, “Sooner the better, anyway. This house gives me the jeebes.” 

Sam’s eye roll was practically audible. He took a breath like he might say something, but then there was the muffled sound of someone else’s voice behind him. His voice was distant when he said, “I’ll be right there.” And then, back into the receiver, “All right, I gotta go,” Sam said. “I’ll talk to you guys later. Hey, call me if you find anything important.”

They both knew that, in this case, _important_ was synonymous with _Michael_. Dean tensed for a fraction of a second before forcing himself back into his easy demeanor. Castiel sometimes wished he wouldn’t do that. Drinking and pretending nothing was wrong wouldn’t help Dean, but he couldn’t change that coping mechanism about him. It was too deep seeded.

“You got it. Hi to Mom and Jack.” 

Dean hung up the phone and placed it on the counter next to the stove. He turned his head around to quickly catch Castiel’s lips. “’Morning. These are almost ready. There’s coffee.” 

Castiel was glad to hear it. He left Dean and crossed to the table in the corner of the room, where the stovetop coffee maker was sitting next to two cups. He let the dark liquid wake him up fully as he sat down.

Dean busied himself putting the eggs and bacon onto two plates. As he carried them over he said, “What was that all about last night, anyway?” 

At first, Castiel didn’t understand his meaning, but then he remembered. There had been a shadow in their bedroom—or, at least, Castiel imagined there had been. He waved it away as he started on his breakfast. “I told you, it was just a dream.” 

Around a mouth of eggs and crushed up bacon, Dean asked, “About?” 

“I thought I saw someone in the room.” It was no use going into any more detail. But then his mind’s eye conjured up the image from last night—the man’s broad shoulders, the mess of hair atop his head, his build. Castiel hadn’t realized it before, but he thought the man looked familiar, even though he never saw his face. He just couldn’t place it.

“It’s strange,” he heard himself contemplate aloud, “I think I knew him.” He shook his head, rattling the thought away. “It’s probably nothing.” 

“Maybe,” Dean said. “I read somewhere that we don’t really see people’s faces in dreams. Our brains kind of assign what everybody looked like only after we wake up. Maybe that happened to you.”

It was one explanation. Castiel couldn’t come up with another. “Maybe.”

“So, anyway, thought I’d get started bringing those boxes up from the basement and into the library. Then we can check if there’s anything else in any of the other rooms. Might help to have everything all in one place before we get going.”

Castiel welcomed the change of topic. It was no use dwelling on his dream.

“What d’you say? Divide and conquer? I’ll do the heavy lifting and you check out the rest of the house?” 

He nodded in agreement. “After I finish my coffee.” 

Dean brought his own cup to his lips, sighing as if it were obvious. “Duh.”

 

///

 

Somewhere, he must gotten turned around. He could have sworn he’d already checked this part of the house. He’d been a few bedrooms and studies, and the result was a weighted box filled almost to the brim with an assortment of books, papers, and objects. The handles on the side of the box dug into his palms too uncomfortably and the cardboard felt as if it might rip any second, so he’d opted to carrying the box from the bottom. It was awkward and limited his mobility, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how feather light and easy all this would be with his grace at full strength.

But that wasn’t his biggest problem at the moment. He was lost. He paused, looking around to catch his bearings. The only problem was, this wing of the house looked uniform to all the others. He sighed, and walked a little further, passing a few bedrooms and a linen closet, hoping to catch sight of something familiar. He eventually rounded a corner, and found himself at the end hallway with the tall window on the opposite side. 

“Perfect,” he whispered, agitated, and adjusted himself to get a better handle on the box. It seemed to be getting heavier by the second. He turned back around, intent on finding a hallway that actually led him to the staircase, but something stopped him.

“ _Castiel_.”

The voice was a whisper, barely heard. In fact, at first Castiel thought it was the wind against the window. Still, it halted him. He stayed perfectly still, that frigid human dread stealing over him once more. There were more whispers, hisses and murmurs. They were coming from behind him.

He looked over his shoulder, back at the far window and the three closed bedroom doors. “Dean?” he called, thinking Dean must have been in one of the rooms. Maybe he’d finished carrying the boxes to the library and decided to help Castiel search the house for more.

The whispers carried on. Castiel couldn’t pick out an intelligible word out of any of it. But the walls were thick. Maybe Dean was on the phone with Sam again, or perhaps Mary. 

He set the box down on the floor and moved towards the first door. 

“Dean, is that you?”

An illogical thought crept in. It told him it wasn’t Dean. 

When he got to the door, he reached a hand out to open it, but something stayed him. His fingers hovered over the knob, flexing towards it but frozen in place. The whispers had stopped.

He brushed his fingers against the door handle, and gasped at the sudden volt of electricity that shocked his fingers. That had happened to him once last week, and he was assured it was normal for a human to experience, but right now it only served to double his anxiety.

This was ridiculous. Castiel forced himself to open the door, perhaps more quickly than he’d intended.

The room was empty. The only things inside were a bed and desk with nothing on it but a reading lamp. He coughed a little at the dust that swirled in the air. He closed the door and walked across the hall to check the next room. The inside was the same as the previous; as was the third and final bedroom when he checked it.

He closed the door again and blinked around, looking for an explanation. He noticed a small air vent on the floor between two of the bedrooms. It must have led through the old house, connecting to similar vents throughout. Maybe he had heard Dean speaking on the phone, after all, just on a different floor.

Content with that theory, he picked up the box again and went back from where he came. The stairs thankfully weren’t far, and he was down in the library in no time. Dean was already inside, unpacking the contents of one of the musty boxes onto the table on the far side of the library. It looked like he’d been at it for some time. 

As Castiel slid the box onto the table nearest the door, he scanned the room and found another vent on the floor in the corner of the room. He’d been right, after all.

“There you are. I was starting to get worried,” Dean said, half glancing up at him as he continued to work. “Thought this house claimed its next victim.” 

Castiel felt himself tense, and then willed it away. He couldn’t let Dean get into his head like that, especially because he was fairly certain Dean was joking. He’d never known him to fear ghosts, real or imagined.

“Very funny,” Castiel deadpanned. He started unpacking his own box, piling the books on top of each other. Recalling the whispers, he asked, “What did Sam say?” 

“He was just checking in,” Dean answered, sounding distracted. “Actually, I was the one who called him. Wanted him to know we got here in one piece. You heard the rest of it.” 

A line creased between Castiel’s eyebrows. “That was earlier this morning.”

Dean looked up again, half-confused and half-annoyed. “Yeah, Cas, I know.”

“He didn’t call back?” 

Dean’s eyes shifted in thought. “No? Why, did he call you?”

“You weren’t talking to anyone a few minutes ago?” 

Dean snorted. “Like who? Might’a been talking to myself.” That seemed unlikely. Dean rarely thought aloud, and when he did it was only for a couple of words. He offered, “I mean, I was wondering where you were. I could’a been praying without knowing it. You said you can pick up on that kinda stuff, right?” 

It was possible. Normally, Castiel wouldn’t doubt it. He knew what Dean’s prayers sounded like, what they felt like. He was attuned to Dean’s longings. Maybe it was harder to distinguish now that his grace was so low. 

“Yeah,” he agreed, and forgot all about the chill that had rattled him. He felt warm now, knowing Dean still longed for him to be near, even if only a staircase separated them. 

“Okay, mystery solved, Nancy Drew.” 

They worked on compiling the books from the boxes into piles based on what they were—reference books, grimoires, average spell books, encyclopedias, and so on. Luckily, the books on the shelves were already in a similar order, so cataloguing them wouldn’t take as long. They put the file folders and binders off to the side, hoping that there would be records on what the weapons and objects in the cases were—and if they should keep their hands off some of the more cursed among them.

They broke for lunch at midday, and Dean said he wanted to explore the grounds before it got too dark. Autumn was quickly turning towards the winter solstice, and night would be upon them in a matter of hours. 

The air was nippy around them, the slight breeze burning the tip of Castiel’s nose and fingers. One hand went into the pocket of his trench coat, and the other was held in Dean’s as they traversed the sunlit grounds. 

The grass was unruly and up to their knees, making Dean complain about ticks, but Castiel didn’t mind. They walked along the overgrown and cracked stone path through the expansive backyard, the dense tree line in the near distance on fire with the golds and reds that still clung to the jagged branches. 

There was a small section just inside the tree line of old, weather-beaten gravestones. Moss grew think on the once-smooth tops of them and the engravings were hardly visible due to time. Castiel wondered if the former Chancellor of the Men of Letters was buried in one of the plots, but they didn’t stay long enough to find out. Dean grew tired of the headstones, claiming that people who buried their loved ones in the backyard like they were family pets were “freaky.” 

A garden sat on the edge of the property, but whatever flowers once bloomed there had long since decayed. Weeds and dying vines had overtaken the dirt patches. The fountain in the middle of it had a toothed crack running through the middle, and the marble benches were strangled with dead ivy and sharp thorns.

“Hey, babe, check this out,” Dean said when something caught his eye. He tugged Castiel along to the other side of the fountain and released his hand to crouch down next to one of the dirt patches. Little green ferns feathered that section of the garden, their plump red berries in full bloom. Dean let his hand brush through the plant. 

“Looks like not everything around here is dead,” he mused. 

“Their seeds must have been carried this way from the forest,” Castiel assumed.

Dean rested his arm on his thigh and looked up at the tree line. “Yeah, I guess. Pretty sweet, though. The berries are cool, even if I can’t eat ‘em.” He stood up again.

Castiel shot him an incredulous look. “Dean, we just ate.”

“Shaddup.”

He put out his hand again, twiddling his fingers enticingly, a smirk playing on his lips. Castiel shook his head, failing to hide his amusement, and clapped his hand back into Dean’s. Almost instantly, Dean yanked him closer and caught Castiel around the waist. Castiel accepted a quick kiss, and then another, and felt something inside of him flutter at the look on Dean’s face. The gentle smile and hooded eyes, the sheer _want_ written all over him. All of it for Castiel.

He felt the same desire for Dean—to have him, to keep him, to simply be close to him. Because Dean was _back_ now. He was home. And, while Castiel didn’t dare believe Dean was all his, he still got a significant part him. His heart, tender and full despite the life he’d led, despite how he tried to guard it; his soul, the wild thing it was; his body, every inch of freckled skin, every undone gasp and teasing grin.

To have that, even a piece of it, was something Castiel would never take for granted.

“Let’s finish looking around,” he whispered against Dean’s lips. “Then he can go back inside and take a longer lunch.”

Dean hummed happily and took one more kiss. “Damn, how’d you end up being such a horn-dog? Didn’t see that coming.” 

Castiel leaned away and threw his head up, eyes heaven bound as he prayed for strength. He doubled his grip in Dean’s hand and nudged him forward. “Walk.”

“What?” Dean laughed. “It was a compliment! _Yeesh_.”

They walked along the tree line towards the side of the house, and Castiel squinted as a statue came into view about a yard from the outer wall. As they drew closer, he saw the wingspan stretching out on either side of the statue. The angel depicted was in armor that vaguely resembled that of the ancient Romans, and there was a spear in his hands. He was poised to throw it, in a full battle stance. His expression was hard, determined, but his fair features were chipped and cracked. His wings were covered in moss. 

Dean’s grip tightened as they reached the statue, and Castiel’s hand was starting to go numb. He wasn’t looking at the statue, but off at the trees. His jaw had gone tight, and all the happiness he’d exhibited just minutes ago was drained from him. Maybe they shouldn’t have walked this way. 

“Dean, let’s go inside,” Castiel said softly. He wanted to wrap Dean in his arms, to fold his wings around him and protect him. He wanted to at least _say_ something to ease Dean’s mind. But there was nothing he could say, and if he did it would fall on deaf ears. So, he instead said, “It’s getting cold.” 

Dean nodded, suddenly quiet. He let his hand slip out of Castiel’s and started trudging towards the house. Castiel lingered momentarily, glancing back at the statue. It was made of stone. It couldn’t hurt either of them.

Just as he was about to follow Dean, he saw something in the corner of his eye. It made his heart seize up. Standing along the wall of the house, in the shadows where the sun couldn’t reach, he thought he saw the figure of a woman. It was hard to say in his periphery, but it looked like she was wearing a dress from the late nineteenth century. Her curves seemed accentuated. 

He quickly turned his head in the direction of the house, but no one was standing along the wall. He sighed, blinking rapidly to rid himself of the mental image. What was wrong with him? 

He stared at the house of a little while longer. The only things that stared back at him were rows of windows, most likely from offices on the bottom floor and bedrooms on the top. The spacing of the windows in the stone seemed to suggest such a layout.

Turning away, he followed Dean back around to the front of the house.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean was talking in his sleep.  His words were incoherent, little mumbles and sentences broken with wet gasps.  It had startled Castiel when it woke him up in the dead of night, to hear those sounds echoing in the darkness of the unfamiliar room.  He settled when he realized that Dean was just having a nightmare. 

He couldn’t understand a single word Dean was saying, but he didn’t need to.  He’d seen the way Dean had reacted to the statue outside.

Cupping his palm to Dean’s jaw, he kissed the skin right beneath his ear and said, “Dean.  It’s all right. You’re safe.” He wouldn’t have said any of this if Dean were awake, knowing it would only cause him to bottle up his thoughts and feelings even more.  There were some things that, even now when Dean couldn’t hear them, Castiel wouldn’t dare say.

Even though he knew Dean wouldn’t feel it, he draped his wing over Dean’s stomach.  It was tattered and broken, useless—not a glorious thing in the slightest anymore. But it was all he had to offer.

The pinched lines on Dean’s forehead smoothed slightly at the sound of Castiel’s voice, and his breath became less ragged.  Castiel glided his hand along Dean’s stubble in attempt to comfort him more, until he was certain Dean’s sleep turned restful.  When he was satisfied, he rolled back over to his side of the bed, his back to Dean. 

He was snuggling back up against his pillow, his eyes fluttering open and closed, when he saw movement in the doorway.  A small figure was peeking around the doorframe, two small hands wrapped around the molding. He couldn’t make out any features in the shadows, but he saw a flash of long blonde hair in the silver light of the moon.  It was a little girl, a child.

She was gone in a flash, jolting behind the wall as if fearful that he saw her.

Castiel sat bolt upright, his eyes plastered to the door.  The little girl didn’t look around again. He reached behind him, putting his hand on Dean’s arm and meaning to shake him awake.  He drew in a breath to speak, to tell Dean there was someone in the house. But then the girl ran from one side of the door to the other, her hurried footfalls sounding down the hall.  The suddenness of it made Castiel’s heart leap. 

He tossed the blankets off of him and rushed for the door, briefly wondering if he should make a pit stop at the weapons duffle on Dean’s side of the room.  He decided not to, thinking better than to go after a child with his angel blade. 

He ran down the hall after her, sliding to a halt when he got to the end of the hall, where he could either continue on left or right, and realized he didn’t know where she went.  It only took a moment before a quick burst of tiny footfalls bounced off the walls, coming from the left. He ran, wanting to catch up with the girl, to ask her how she got in the house, to tell her to go home to her parents.  He wondered if she was alone, or if she brought any friends.

Up ahead, he saw a door slam open.  The girl rushed out of it and turned a corner at the end of the hall, her blonde hair waving after her. 

“Wait!  I won’t hurt you,” Castiel called, but she didn’t stop.  He rushed after her until he came to another running halt.  She’d led him to the end hallway. The light of the moon was bright, illuminating the carpeted floor, as it streamed inside from the tall window.

Castiel paused, trying to quiet his breath as it caught up with him to listen for the girl.  All the doors were still shut, and he hadn’t heard one creak open and close to grant her access.  She wasn’t so far ahead of him that she could do it quietly. Still, he wasn’t ruling it out. 

A slow chill rolled up his spine as he paced to the first door and opened it.  Its rusted hinges protested. “Hello? Little girl?” As expected, there wasn’t an answer.  He stood still inside the empty bedroom. There weren’t any nooks and crannies in which she could hide.  There wasn’t even a closet. Except for the paltry furniture, the room was bare. The only thing he could think of was checking under the bed, but she wasn’t there, either. 

He let out an exasperated sound and rubbed at his eyes.  It was late. He was tired. He wanted this to be over. “You can come out,” he called to the girl.  “You won’t be in trouble. Just . . . Go home.” When there was no answer, he got up from his crouch next to the bed and moved to the next room.

“I’m sure your parents know you’re missing by now.”

She wasn’t in the room across the hall, either.  Castiel didn’t know why exactly, but that unnerved him.  The girl had been quiet for far too long.

Something dark was eating away at his insides when he pushed open the last door in the hall.  Again, the room was empty. Castiel thought maybe he should have brought a weapon, after all—something iron.  The feeling in his stomach doubled when he remembered Dean, still asleep—vulnerable—in their bedroom.

He flew from the room and down the hall, cursing his broken wings for their inability to transport him to Dean immediately.  If this house were truly haunted, Castiel would be all but useless without his powers.

Dean was still asleep, unharmed, in bed, and a cursory glance around told him that no one else was present.  He went to the weapons bag and pulled out the rock salt, and poured a line of it across the entrance to the bedroom. 

He stepped back, eyes wide on the doorway, heart in his throat, his panting breaths the only sound he could hear.  He stayed vigilant for a full ten minutes, salt container in his hand, but nothing appeared before him. 

Whatever he’d seen, it was gone now, and didn't seem particularly malevolent.  The salt should deter it through the night.  He thought about the girl, and the man he’d seen the other night; the woman outside the house.  It was too much to be a coincidence, and he was certain his mind wasn’t inventing them. 

He would tell Dean about the ghosts in the morning.  They would find the bones and burn them. 

He went back to bed, still keeping half an eye on the doorway.  “It’s all right, Dean,” he whispered, even though he didn’t quite believe it.  The buzzing feeling on the back of his neck, that animalistic warning that they weren’t alone, persisted.

When he laid down, he faced the entrance way, and stared at the door until the pinks and grays of dawn swept over the room.

 

///

 

The sun was high in the sky when he woke up, its crisp rays barely enough to warm the earth.  But Castiel could still feel it—the heat, creating and destroying, its face turning away as the earth rotated.  That, at least, his grace still allowed him.

He was alone in bed.  It was pushing noon, and Dean had probably been up for hours.  Castiel sat up and ran his hand through his hair, tousling the mop of dark brown and not bothering to correct it as he remembered the events of last night.  The line of salt in the doorway caught his eye. There was a swipe through it, little crystals scattered around where a foot accidentally connected with them.  He could almost picture Dean cursing under his breath as the salt stuck to the sole of his foot. 

It seemed silly now, in the daylight hours, thinking the girl was a ghost.  He would have known right away if she had been. He would have been able to take one look at her lost soul, and he would have known.

She was only a child that had snuck inside and escaped.  She may have not even gone down the dead end hallway. She could have found her way to the stairs instead.  That seemed like the more logical explanation.

Untangling the sheets from around his legs, he kicked out of bed.  He walked over the line of salt, telling himself he’d clean it up later after he got some coffee in him.  He was still tired, despite the hour, and wondered why Dean had let him sleep so late.

Before going to the kitchen, he stopped in the library, where he found Dean sifting through the file folders that kept records of the various artifacts preserved in the house.  Castiel stopped dead when he saw the bottle of amber liquid on the table next to Dean’s elbow, and the tall highball glass with a finger of whiskey at the bottom.  Translucent legs were still dragging their way down the side of the glass, telling Castiel that Dean must have drank from it right before he arrived. 

“You couldn’t find a more appropriate glass?” Castiel said, not bothering to keep the disapproval out of his tone.  Just because it was the afternoon didn’t mean it wasn’t still early.

Dean didn’t look up.  He grabbed the whiskey bottle and poured the chugging liquid into the glass until it was half full, as if to prove a point.  “Morning to you, too, Cas,” he said dryly, and Castiel wondered how long he’d been at it. His eyes were red and tired and he hadn’t bothered to shave.

Castiel turned his eyes heaven-bound and exited the library.  There wasn’t any food in the kitchen, Dean obviously having opted for a liquid breakfast.  The stove was different from the one in the bunker, but he eventually figured out how to use it to boil the water for his coffee.  By the time the coffee was percolated, his stomach was growling, but he wasn’t about to ask Dean to make lunch. The half of a Thomas’ bagel in the fridge smeared with peanut butter would have to do. 

He went back into the library, bagel held between his teeth and a cup of coffee in either hand.  He set one pointedly in front of Dean before sitting down at the other table. Dean clocked the coffee, but didn’t move to pick it up.

Castiel sat in front of the open reference book and pad of paper, ink dried and pen with its cap still off, that he’d abandoned the previous day.  He’d been cataloguing the books by title and chapter header, creating a pseudo-table of contents for each tome so they had better reference for what information each book held.  However, he was barely conscious of what he was writing, and he hardly tasted the peanut butter sticking to the roof of his mouth. 

He was too preoccupied with what had happened last night, and if he should even bother telling Dean.  It was only a little girl, after all. It wasn’t worth worrying him. Still, if Dean found out, he’d be angry that Castiel kept it from him.

“Someone was in the house last night,” Castiel said, breaking their silence.  It cut straight to the point, and it got Dean’s attention. He carefully lowered his whiskey glass down from his lips.

“Come again?” 

“You were asleep,” Castiel explained, not mentioning his nightmare.  “I woke up and saw her outside of the bedroom.”

Dean’s voice was loud and rough when he accused, “And you didn’t wake me up?”

Castiel let his pen fall into the binding of the book.  “She was a little girl, Dean.”

“A what?”

“A girl.  She probably thought the house was abandoned when she snuck in.  I think I can handle a child.” 

Dean seemed to settle somewhat, but he still looked perturbed. “You sure you weren’t just dreaming?”

Castiel nodded. He’d gotten out of bed. He’d put the salt down. His heart had been hammering too hard for him to be asleep. He’d been awake.

“So, you kicked her out?”

“Not exactly.  I lost her.”

Both of Dean’s brows shot upward.  “You lost her?”

“Yes, in the end hallway.” 

“The _what_?” 

“The hallway at the back of the house.”

“I don’t—,” he pinched the bridge of his nose as if to stifle a headache, deciding to amend whatever he was about to say to focus on what he deemed important.  “Cas, if you lost her, how do you know she left?”

Castiel scoffed.  “She isn’t here now, Dean.  I think I frightened her. She wouldn’t stay here.” 

“How would she even get in here? The fence outside is like, ten feet high and we’re in the middle of the woods.”

“The wall is old, Dean. It may be destroyed somewhere along the property.” 

There was a pause, long enough that Castiel thought the conversation was over as Dean took another long pull of his drink.  When he set it back down, he asked, “Is that what the salt at the door was all about?”

Castiel flushed slightly.  “Yes. I—I thought the girl might have been a ghost.  I was wrong." 

Dean leaned back in his chair and gesture out his palm. His voice was clipped.  “How do you know?”

“Because she wasn’t a ghost.”

“Well, if you didn’t see her leave, and you didn’t even talk to her, _how do you know_?”

Castiel didn’t care for Dean’s tone.  Just because he had a bad dream and wanted to drink himself to death instead of talking about what was bothering him didn’t mean he had to take it out on Castiel.  “Because I’d know,” he bristled, matching Dean’s tone. “I’m an angel.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a little short on _angel_ these days,” Dean muttered.

“Excuse me?”

Dean huffed loudly, as if he’d been the one offended.  “I dunno what to tell you, Cas. You’re so sure it was just a girl, remember to lock the damn doors and windows before you go to sleep!”

Castiel watched him, expression hard and unblinking, for a few seconds as Dean turned back to the files on the table before him and the drink in his hand.  He wanted to yell back, to say something that would hurt Dean in return, but he stayed his tongue. Instead, he slammed his book closed and collected the items before him. 

“Where are you going?” Dean growled. 

“I’ll work in the kitchen.”  He pushed his chair back in against the table with a loud squeak.  “Come get me when you’ve decided to face your problems like an adult.” 

“Adults drink,” Dean shot at his retreating back.

“An adult who isn’t your father.” 

As he stormed out of the room, he heard Dean yell, “Oh, yeah, real mature, Cas!  That’ll fix it! Walking out—as usual!”

Castiel knew that was only to goad him, but it still cut a tear in his chest.  He ground his teeth and continued to the kitchen.

 

///

 

It was close to dinnertime, the sun a red line over the mountains, when Dean sobered up enough to show his face.  He came into the kitchen without a word and began taking out bowls and spices. It didn’t take long for the popping of sweet oil and the bubbling of water filled the silence as he fried up chicken cutlets and rice.  When he was done, he offered a plate to Castiel with soft eyes, and Castiel decided to stop giving him the cold shoulder. 

He never actually said the words “I’m sorry,” but Castiel knew he was.  It was enough.

Still, they remained quiet throughout dinner and clean up, hardly speaking a word between them.  Castiel could tell Dean was still haunted, but his mood had shifted from belligerent to melancholy. He didn’t like seeing the pain in Dean’s eyes, and wished he could take it away as easily as a physical wound. 

After dinner, they retired to the couch in the living room to watch a movie on Dean’s laptop.  Castiel’s back was against the pillows and armrest, with Dean tucked between his legs, spine pressed to his chest.  There was a thick wool blanket from the upstairs linen closet draped around them, and the laptop was on Dean’s lap.

Some Western played.  It was one of Dean’s favorites, but Castiel was certain he wasn’t watching it.  He kept picking at a loose thread in the blanket like it was the most interesting thing in the world.  Castiel could almost hear the cogs in his mind turning.

He pressed his lips to Dean’s hairline, hoping it would provide some comfort.  Hoping the quiet and dark autumn night and the close solitude they found themselves in would be enough to draw Dean’s thoughts to his lips.  “What’s the matter, Dean?”

Dean’s fingers stilled around the thread, and he exhaled heavily through his nose.  For a second, it felt like he might say something significant, but the only thing he offered was, “Nothin’.” 

Castiel wouldn’t accept that.  “That’s not true.”

Dean lifted one shoulder in a shrug.  “I dunno. Just . . . thinking, I guess.”

“About Michael?”  Castiel only said it because he thought he could get away with it, but only in a whisper.  This moment was fragile. If he pushed too hard, it would ignite Dean’s ire again. 

Dean didn’t say anything for a long time, and Castiel waited.  Eventually, Dean spoke under his breath. “I tried so hard to fight him, you know.”  He gave a wet kind of laugh, too hollow. “I really did.” 

“I know, Dean,” Castiel said, trying not to sound too eager now that Dean was speaking his mind.

“I did every damn thing I could think of to get him out.  I kicked and punch and shouted ‘til I was blue in the face and he just—,” he shook his head into a breath, and Castiel wished he could see his face, “ignored it.  He _ignored_ all of it.  And I remember thinking—what kind of _thing_ can do that?  To just—.” 

He ran his hand down his face, and went quiet for another long while.  But he wanted to say more. Castiel felt it, the unspoken words charging the air.  He didn’t know whether to keep waiting or to prompt Dean. He didn’t have to do either because Dean finally spoke.

Quietly, head bent forward, he asked, “Did Jimmy ever fight back?”

Castiel hadn’t been expecting the question.  His stomach opened up into a bottomless pit.  Dean had swiveled around to look at him now, his eyes cutting a jagged line up and down Castiel’s face.

He didn’t know how to answer.  What did Dean want him to say? He’d never asked Castiel that question before.

“No,” he answered at last, and he didn’t know why guilt was sloshing in his stomach.  “I tried to make him as comfortable as possible.”

Dean’s expression shifted, become at once more guarded and more vulnerable.  “So, what? You fed him a bunch’a fantasies?”

Castiel furrowed his brow.  He had cared about Jimmy’s well-being.  He hadn’t wanted to harm him or scar his mind.  What he’d done, he did to protect him—for as long as he could.  “I allowed him to dream. Why are you asking me this?”

Dean sat up fully, closing his laptop without first pausing the film.  He scoffed, his eyes going blank and expressionless; and Castiel knew some line inside of him had been crossed.  But it wasn’t Dean anger lifting to the surface like oil on water, it was nothingness—numbness. 

“You let him dream?” he repeated like it was a bad thing.  “That isn’t a mercy, Cas. It’s a prison. I mean, listen, I get you thought you were doing the right thing by him, but you weren’t.”

Castiel lifted himself up to sit more properly.  The guilt inside of him was now burning hot. He could it feel it forming a pressure behind his eyes—and what a human thing it was, for him to involuntarily react like that. 

“Dean,” he breathed out, and it was harder to do than it should be.  “Why are you saying this?”

Dean didn’t hold back, whether because the wound Michael left behind was still raw or because he wanted to wound Castiel in return.  “Because maybe it’s time you heard it,” 

“Jimmy, he—Dean, I’ve told you, Jimmy was willing when he let me in.  He—he knew—.”

Dean was shaking his head.  “He didn’t know. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into. How the fuck could he’a known, Cas?”

Castiel looked down, searching the floor for an answer he knew wasn’t there.  He didn’t want to feel Dean’s judging eyes on him anymore. He wished he could fly far away, somewhere no one could find him until Dean’s mood had passed.  Would it pass? Or had Dean been thinking these things for years? 

“Leave me alone,” he said.  He’d wanted it to sound like thunder, rolling and deadly.  It had sounded instead like the dying of the world before winter.

He saw Dean blink, coming back to himself.  He must have realized what he’d said, but still he wouldn’t apologize.  It suddenly wasn’t enough.

“Babe—.”

“Leave me alone, Dean.”  Some of the gravel made its way into his tone now.  He narrowed his eyes frostily at Dean. “I think it’s time you went to sleep.”

Dean hesitated before looking off to the side.  “Okay,” he said. “You coming?”

Castiel was tired.  He’d been tired all day, but he wanted his space.  And Dean needed space, too. Maybe there was a reason they lived in bunker with other people constantly around.

“No.  I’m an angel.  I don’t need sleep.”

Dean looked hurt, and he didn’t believe it.  But he licked his lips and accepted it with a nod.  He stood up, tucking his laptop under his arm. “All right.  Night, Cas.”

Castiel didn’t answer.  He kept his eyes on the shadowy trees swaying in the distance outside the window until Dean was out of the room.

 

///

 

“Castiel.”

The voice drifted into his subconscious, pulling him from sleep as if he were floating in a river’s continual current. 

“Castiel.” 

He blinked awake, into the moonlight coming through the window. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the couch, but he put his head down and the rest was out of his control. Grunting, he lifted himself up by his elbows and looked at the man standing in the corner of the room, nothing but a silhouette in the darkness. 

“What is it, Dean?” he said, wishing he hadn’t yawned around the words. He was still irritable, and he wanted Dean to know that, even if he had come back downstairs to ask Castiel to join him in bed.

Dean didn’t answer, and Castiel squinted at him. He got a better look now that his eyes were less blurry with sleep, and something was off. The shadow was a few inches too short.

That wasn’t Dean. 

The figure stepped forward, into the silver light coming through the window, and Castiel heard his own breath catch. It was like he was looking in a mirror—but no. This Castiel was a little wirier in build, a touch thinner. There were fewer lines on his face, and his hair was wilder. And Castiel hadn’t worn that particular coat in years; he’d left it at a laundry mat.

He remembered the figure he’d seen on their first night in the house, and suddenly understood why it looked so familiar.

“You promised, Castiel.” 

“Jimmy?” He hadn’t meant to say it. The word spilled off his lips in a breath.

“You promised,” Jimmy said again, his voice turning accusatory. “You told me, if I said yes, you’d protect them. You _said_ you would. That was the deal!" 

Castiel swallowed hard and skewed his eyes shut. He told himself he was dreaming. He told himself this wasn’t real. He’d open his eyes again and Jimmy would be gone. He’d be in bed. He’d be in bed next to Dean. 

But when he opened his eyes, Jimmy wasn’t gone. He was closer—leaning over Castiel, his face a foot away.

“My wife is _dead_ because of you!” Jimmy shouted. “Claire could be next! If she isn’t dead already!”

“She isn’t,” Castiel tried, but his voice was weak and uncertain. He’d know if Claire was dead. Someone would have called. They’d know. 

“And what are you doing to keep it that way? You _promised_ , Cas!” 

“I know—I—I’m—.” 

“You promised!” Something was dripping out of Jimmy’s hairline. Black and thick, like tar. The sludge traveled down his forehead, into his eyes, down his cheeks and chin. It went into his mouth as he repeated his words over and over again.

Castiel couldn’t look away. It was too horrible. He watched as Jimmy’s body decayed before him, until the black substance was dripping down his chest and staining his clothes. It ran onto the floor. Castiel forced his eyes closed, held his breath, willed his grace to his hands so he could defend himself. He couldn’t gather it. It fizzled within him. 

When his lungs protested, the air burst out of him. His eyes shot open along with it, and Jimmy was gone. He looked down at the floor, but there wasn’t any evidence of the black liquid. It had all disappeared. 

He sat still, his mind refusing to catch up with him, his muscles frozen, his grace in hibernation.

And then there was whispering. It came from nowhere and everywhere and he couldn’t discern what it was saying.

Everything kick started at once. He had to get out of that house. He jumped up, nearly tripping on his blanket as he did, and vaulted to the front door. He tore it open with more strength than he’d anticipated, his at last grace deciding at last to lend a hand, and let it slam against the wall. He didn’t bother closing it behind him as he made for the Impala.

The car was safe. It was sturdy. He could breathe in its passenger seat. He locked himself inside and put his head in his hands. His breath fogged around him. The image of Jimmy’s blackening face was burned behind his eyelids.

He opened his eyes and looked up, and there was a person standing in front of the car. His heart nearly cracked his ribs open before he realized who it was. 

Dean crossed to the driver’s side and slid inside. The ruckus Castiel made must have woken him up. He closed the door behind him to combat the cold. 

“Cas, what the—?” 

“There’s something in that house, Dean,” he hurried to say. “I think you were right. I think it’s haunted.” 

“Cas, hold on. Slow down.” Dean’s body was oriented towards him, his hands held up between them in a placating manner. Castiel didn’t know how he was so composed. “What happened?”

Castiel shook his head, forcing a calm that he didn’t feel in the slightest. “I saw Jimmy Novak.”

Dean jerked his head back in surprise. “You what? What do you mean, you _saw_ him?” 

“He woke me up. He was angry with me. And he—there was this black goo on him.” 

Dean’s eyes searched him as he thought. After a pause, he said, “Cas, you said it yourself, the place is warded. If it was haunted, why haven’t I seen anything yet? You’re sure you weren’t—?”

“I _wasn’t_ —!” Calm. Try to be calm. “I wasn’t dreaming, Dean. I know what I saw. If spirits are strong enough, they can play tricks. You and I both know that.”

“Okay! Okay.” Dean faced forward, putting his hands on the steering wheel, and Castiel prayed he was going to drive them away from the house. But he didn’t start the engine, and Castiel wasn’t even sure the keys were on his person. He was in his pajamas. 

After some contemplation, Dean said, “Tell you what. I’m gonna go inside and sweep for EMF.” 

Good. That was good. At least it would give them answers. “And if you find any?” 

“Then, we’ll deal with it.” Dean’s steady voice was like a balm on his skin. “If it is ghosts, _great_. Ghosts are easy, right? Hell, they’re probably buried in that plot out back. We’ll salt and burn ‘em tonight if that’s the case.” 

It didn’t make Castiel feel any better. Maybe that was all well and good for the present, but this experience only served to unnerve him. He hadn’t been able to use his powers. His grace had failed him completely. He was defenseless. How could expect to help his friends in any way if he couldn’t even protect himself?

“Dean, without my powers—.” 

Dean didn’t let him finished. “Screw, _without your powers_! You don’t need powers to hunt half the crap out there—especially ghosts. Plus, what have you been telling Jack for months? Practice what you preach, man.” He forced a disarming smile, and it calmed Castiel slightly. 

He was right, of course. Castiel had faced worse threats without his grace. He thought he’d remembered what it had been like to be newly human, but he’d forgotten how jarring the experience could be. Maybe he was just being reactionary. He didn’t have to lose himself to this; he could find himself, as he had last time. He could still contribute to the group, to prove useful. He could be a better example to Jack. He nodded. “Okay,” he agreed, feigning bravery in hopes that it would become real. He steeled himself, reaching for the door handle. “Let’s go.”

Dean grabbed his arm, halting him. “No, hey. I’ll go inside. You stay out in the car.”

Castiel blanched. Had Dean not believed a word he’d just said? “I’m not staying in the car, Dean. I can handle myself.”

“I know, Cas. But, whatever this is, it’s latched on to you for some reason.” If that was supposed to be comforting, it wasn’t. “Why don’t you let me take the wheel right now? Then, we’ll go from there.”

Castiel stared at him, deciding what to do. But Dean was right. Maybe this was for the best. He sat back against the bench seat and nodded.

“Okay. Good,” Dean said. He lingered momentarily, scanning Castiel up and down as if checking for injury, and then got out of the car.

He went to the trunk first, and loaded salt rounds into the second sawed off, the one that wasn’t in the duffle bag upstairs, and the EMF detector. Castiel watched Dean cock the gun before disappearing back into the house, taking Castiel’s breath with him.

He returned a little under an hour later, just as Castiel was about to give up waiting and charge in after him, fearing the worst. Dean’s posture was too loose for him to have found anything, so Castiel knew what he was going to say before he even got back behind the wheel of the car. 

“Where did you check?” Castiel asked as soon as the door was closed again. “The bedroom?”

“Yeah, Cas. I checked the bedroom.”

“The living room?”

“There, too.” 

“The end hallway?” 

Dean sighed somewhat agitatedly, but managed to rein his patience back in. “I checked everywhere, Cas. Twice. I couldn’t find anything. No EMF, no cold spots, no ectoplasm.”

The answer, when said aloud, didn’t provide Castiel with any solace. He knew what he saw. These weren’t dreams.

Dean licked his lips hesitantly before saying, “You’re _positive_ you weren’t dreaming?”

Castiel sighed, keeping his vision ahead at the dark night. The gray tree trunks loomed in the distance like specters. “I wasn’t, Dean,” he said. “I know I wasn’t.”

He felt Dean’s eyes assessing him before he said, “Okay, I believe you.”

That was nice to hear, because Castiel was beginning to think he was going insane. “Thank you.”

But it didn’t get them anywhere. If there wasn’t any EMF, that meant there weren’t any ghosts. Castiel didn’t know where to go from there.

As if Dean had read his mind, he said, “We’ll keep our eyes peeled. Put some rock salt down. We’ll figure it out, Cas.”

Castiel nodded gratefully. If nothing else, he had Dean in his corner. It was enough.

“Now, what d’you say? Wanna go back in? Go to bed? Both of us.”

The answer was no. It was a very strong, loud _no_. But it was freezing outside, and they very well couldn’t sleep in the car. And Castiel was a soldier—or, he had been. He could handle this. 

“Okay,” he said, nodding. 

“Okay,” Dean repeated. He patted Castiel on the shoulder before the two of them got out of the car and went back inside.

 

///

 

Castiel spent the majority of the next day outside of the house with a pile of books and records from the library spread out around him on the browning grass.  It was too chilly out, and the cold breeze whistling through the trees in the woods kept rustling the pages. He eventually had to put a rock on whatever book was currently open to keep his place, causing the paper to crunch and wiggle in a bid for freedom whenever the wind picked up.  He used his elbow to tame the notebook situated on his knees as he jotted down scribbles.

Around lunchtime, Dean joined him with a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  He complained the entire time, pulling his jacket around him and huddling in on himself for dramatic effect.  When that didn’t work, he sidled up to Castiel’s side and sneakily shoved his hand beneath Castiel’s shirt. Castiel yelped, and reciprocated by clamping his own hands, numb from the chill at this point, on Dean’s neck.  The ensuing battle ended with the two of them tumbling around on the dirt, and Castiel tasted the leftover peanut butter on Dean’s tongue. 

“Come inside,” Dean tried coaxing when they took a break to catch their breath.  Castiel was laying on top of him, their legs tangled and chests pressed together. Dean reached up and plucked a red leaf out of Castiel’s hair.  “C’mon, babe. You really gonna make me sit in there by myself?” 

It was tempting, but Castiel didn’t want to go inside, despite the fact that his clothes were barely blocking the wind and the elements were making him exhausted.  Inside, he could curl up on the couch with Dean for nap. He could warm himself. But he needed the fresh air, despite the sweet smell of decay lifting off the earth. The labyrinth of narrow, shadowed hallways and the empty rooms in the house still cluttered his head, making him feel claustrophobic.  At least, out here, he wasn’t suffocating on the thin air of the mountaintop. 

He dipped his nose into Dean’s neck and brushed his chapped lips against the skin there.  “You could always stay out here.”

“And freeze my balls off?  Pass.”

Dean gave up and went back inside after that, his hand held loosely in Castiel’s until he was too far away, as if hoping the touch would make him follow.  It made a pit form in Castiel’s stomach, but he let his fingers slip out of Dean’s and turned back to his work.

He ran out of books in his pile to catalogue as the sun was disappearing behind the mountains, leaving the deep reds of dusk in its wake.  Castiel didn’t want to go back inside just yet. He walked along the grounds, kicking his way through the tall grass and dead leaves. The house in the center of it all was ever darkening in the corners of his eyes. 

He walked on, giving the gravesite a wide breadth as he moved through the garden.  The bright, soft ferns that Dean had run his hands through days ago were brittle and yellowing with bruises now, their berries fallen and withered or plucked away by the squawking murder of crows roosting in the trees.

It was getting too dark to see now, and moonrise wasn’t for another couple of hours.  If Castiel concentrated, he could sense the far-off tides still untamed by the lunar pull, but their swell and retreat was nearly lost to him now.  He couldn’t even feel the miles between himself and the coast.

He went back to his spot on the lawn and collected his books and writing materials before heading back into the house.  There was already a warm glow emitting from a few lower floor windows, and Castiel sincerely hoped one of them was the kitchen.  The shivering autumn air had taken a lot out of him, and his stomach was rumbling with hunger. Perhaps Dean had already gotten dinner started. 

However, when he reached the kitchen, the light was off and the room was empty.  The plates they’d used for lunch were on the drying rack next to the sink, all the water already dripped dry from the porcelain.

“Dean?” Castiel called out, but there wasn’t an answer.

He walked further into the house in search of Dean, rubbing his red hands together in hopes of warmth.  It was only a few degrees warmer inside than it was outside, and Castiel couldn’t help but think that could be remedied by using the wood stove. 

There was a light on in the library, casting a long yellow rectangle into the hall and onto the wall opposite the doors.  Dean must have still been inside, and that surprised Castiel. It was unlike Dean to ignore his stomach in favor of research.  Even in times of crisis, Dean made sure everyone stayed fed. 

As he drew closer to the library doors, he could hear vague whispers coming from inside.  It halted him, making the chill in his bones seep further into his chest. “Dean?” he called again to no response.  Castiel tightened his fist as his side, as if clutching the hilt of his blade. Cautiously, he stalked into the library.

What he saw inside make him drop his demeanor, and the only instinct left was panic. 

“Dean!”

He was strung up on the rolling ladder along the bookshelves, his wrists chained to the rungs and his legs dangling loosely as if weighted.  The cotton of his shirt was mangled as if torn by claws, and the fresh blood dripping down his face and arms stained the fabric. New bruises were starkly black against his paled skin, and older ones sat yellow and gray against calluses. 

There was a wound in his neck, angry and gaping, like something had been hooked in the skin. He exposed it to the air and the light, his neck strained to one side, his head bent and lolling. 

Castiel shouted his name in a mantra as he ran across the room to get to him. Up close, he could see the pockmarks like freckles on Dean’s flesh. They looked like they’d been made from different sized objects—thin needles and sharp knives. His wrists were raw against the chains, and his fingers twitched, most of them without their nails.

A capillary had burst in his right eye, flooding the white of it with red. His other eye was bloodshot and dilated, making the green of his irises impossibly bright. He didn’t even blink. He was staring into thin air, as if he didn’t even see Castiel. As if he couldn’t register anything at all.

Castiel ghosted his hands over Dean, trying to find a way to get him down without hurting him further. He cursed himself for not coming inside with Dean early, to protect him. Further back, he should have never allowed them to re-enter the house after the previous night. And now. . .

Now, whatever was in this house got Dean. 

Dean’s breaths were coming out in shallow wheezed, like his lungs were filled with water. His busted lips moved infinitesimally with low, tripping whispers that Castiel couldn’t make out even with his ear held close. Dean was losing his strength. He’d die if Castiel didn’t do something.

He put his hands on Dean’s sweat-matted hair, wincing at the strangled sound of pain it elicited, ignoring the blood and filth getting onto his hands. He reached deep within himself, forcing his grace to the surface. It sputtered and died before it reached his fingers. 

Castiel came back to himself with a thick sob. He closed his eyes tightly, willing himself to heal Dean. 

He couldn’t. His heart was pounding and his body was shaking and Dean was dying. Dean was dying and Castiel hadn’t been there to protect him. Castiel couldn’t heal him. 

“Dean,” Castiel eked out. He tried to lift Dean’s head, but it slipped heavily to the side again. “Dean!” 

“Where is it?” someone shouted from behind Castiel, making his heart leap into his throat. He spun around quickly to find Dean in the doorway, forehead pinched in concentration and rifle full of rock salt aimed and scanning the room.

Castiel blinked at him dumbly. He turned back to the ladder, but it was vacant. His hands, still held up as if clutching Dean’s head, no longer had blood staining them. There was no pressure of Dean’s torn and mutilated skin on his palms.

“What’d you see, Cas? Where is it?” Dean said again, regaining Castiel’s attention.

“Dean?” he blurted out, eyes narrowed in overwhelming confusion. It had been so real. 

Dean lowered the rifle, but remained wary. “Did you see something again?” 

Castiel didn’t answer the question, as he thought the answer obvious. His confusion was washed away by total relief—relief that seemed too good to be true. He needed to prove to himself that Dean was with him, safe. That Dean was alive.

He crossed the room towards Dean, knocking the barrel of the gun out of his way and grabbing him by the cheeks. He kissed him hard, and felt Dean tense before eventually slackening into the kiss. Dean’s hand, tentative and uncertain, came up to brush Castiel’s elbow.

Why had he seen Dean that way, broken and on the verge of death? Was it a threat, a warning? Had whatever was in the house moved away from Castiel and set it’s sights on Dean? No. No, Castiel wouldn’t let it have him. He would keep him safe, keep him whole. He wouldn’t let Dean out of his sight. 

He leaned back, eyes wide as they checked Dean for injury. He knew what he’d seen wasn’t real, but the hollow feeling in the marrow of his bones was harder to convince. But there was no blood, no bruising, no scars but the normal ones. Castiel looked down at Dean’s shirt. It wasn’t ripped, and no crimson pooled on it. The cuts on his chest and torso were gone.

He had to be sure.

He pushed the flannel off Dean’s shoulders and manhandled it until it was off, ignoring Dean’s protests of, “Cas! Slow down! What happened?” He lifted the t-shirt over Dean’s head and tossed it away, until he was satisfied that the skin beneath was clean and unbroken. He skimmed his fingers along Dean’s stomach and breathed. 

It was all too much. The horror in his gut was still lingering. He bent forward, resting his forehead against Dean’s chest and breathing in his dark, spiced scent. 

“Cas,” Dean said, his tone more gentle than before. He rested his hands on Castiel’s shoulder blades. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Castiel said, more to himself than to Dean. He pressed forward and placed a kiss to the center of Dean’s chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He put his lips to Dean’s chest again and again, his words getting lost against the skin as he moved upwards. He felt Dean shiver beneath him. 

“Dean,” he said, and started to mouth at the spot on Dean’s neck where wound had been in his vision. Dean let out a sound and craned his head to the side to give Castiel more access.

“Cas, you sure you’re okay? You’re kinda giving me whiplash here, buddy.” 

Castiel pulled back fractionally, not wanting to move out of Dean’s space. Dean’s pupils were blown out again, but this time it was beautiful. “Yes.” He kissed the corner of Dean’s lips. “Let’s go upstairs.” 

Dean’s brow collapsed. “You don’t want dinner?” 

Castiel had lost his appetite for food. He didn’t want to do anything but to hold Dean close, to shelter him and never let go. “I want _you_ ,” he growled, and crashed their mouths together again.

Apparently, it was all Dean needed, because he sank into the kiss, reciprocating with the usual amount of passion and enthusiasm he put into all things. Hunting, driving, gambling, movie watching, and even cooking. Castiel had known Dean’s zest for all these things for years, witnessed them firsthand. And, as of recent weeks, he could add kissing to that list. He thought maybe it was his favorite of Dean’s passions yet.

Granted he hadn’t a wealth of experience in the area, but he loved the way Dean kissed him. It was tender, despite the fervor, determined to give as well as receive. The small pushes and pulls and the easy roll of his tongue, the teasing nips. Dean was rarely one to use his words to express himself. It was always in his actions, and his kisses were no different. They always spoke to his mood—whether it was sad or playful or desperate, full of want or riddled with need. 

They were one of the reasons Castiel enjoyed being intimate with him. Dean was open in these moments, honest. He let Castiel see him laid bare.

Dean’s fingers latched onto Castiel’s side, squeezing his hips briefly before moving up the hem of his shirt and brushing Castiel’s stomach. His touch was warm and welcome, and Castiel almost forgot about how cold he’d been just moments ago. With his free hand, Dean palmed Castiel’s coat off his shoulders, and the other came up, too, with an impatient huff when it the garment got stuck. Castiel shrugged out of it the rest of the way, and then his hands were back on Dean’s cheeks.

When Dean’s mouth started to trail away from his to line his chin and jaw, Castiel’s eyes blinked open to the library. The apparition he’d seen before was still fresh in his mind, and he didn’t want to think about. He didn’t want it to taint his time with Dean.

“Dean, let’s go upstairs,” he said again. 

Dean groaned a little, like it was an inconvenience. He pressed his lips to the spot under Castiel’s ear, leaving prickled skin in his wake, before pulling back. He relented, and took Castiel by the hand, leading him out of the library and towards the staircase in a half-jog, and Castiel stumbled to keep up. 

They were on each other again as soon as they made it into their bedroom, Dean turning around to crowd into him and Castiel drawing their lips together like he’d been starving for it in the time it took to get upstairs. 

Castiel lost his shirt on the way into bed. He lay down on the mattress, propping himself up with one elbow as Dean crawled on top of him. He folded his hand around the back of Dean’s neck and brought him back in for a kiss. He could feel Dean’s panting breaths between kisses, could feel fire burning in his own lungs and a flush on his skin, could feel another kind of flame light in his veins and spread to his groin. 

Dean dragged his lips down Castiel’s neck and chest, working his way down his stomach. He scrapped his teeth over his tattoo, and Castiel bent his neck back to let out a soft groan. Dean’s hands were working on Castiel’s belt, unbuckling it and unzipping his jeans. He reached down the front of his pants, and the shock of his fingers elicited a loud gasp from Castiel.

Dean wasted no time taking Castiel out of the front of his pants and dipping downwards. If his fingers had been a shock to the system, the heated feeling of his wet mouth made Castiel lightheaded. He cried out, the sounds coming uninhibited from his throat as Dean teased him with the tip of his tongue. He looked down at Dean, watching his head bob in his lap as the fire inside of him burned blue. Dean sucked him into he aching, moaning, incoherent.

Only Dean could stir up such a frenzy inside of him, to set his nerves aglow until every inch of him was sensitive and pulsing. He could never get used to it, being so connected to this body whenever Dean’s hands were on it. Dean caused within him a visceral reaction—a human reaction.

Dean slid his mouth off of him with a wet sound, and it left Castiel gasping and calling out for him. He was half-frustrated and half-elated. Dean was wearing a slanted smirk when he said, “Two seconds. I’ll be right back.”

He moved to get off the bed, and Castiel tried to grab his arm to get him to stay, but Dean swatted it away. “I’m comin’ back,” he promised, sounding light. The tone of voice made Castiel’s chest balloon. While Dean went over to their duffle bags, Castiel shimmied fully out of his jeans and discarded them on the floor. 

Dean came back with a tube of KY and a grin on his face. His eyes scanned Castiel up and down in an appreciative way that made Castiel a little modest, but it also charged something inside of him. Dean brandished the tube for a second before tossing it onto Castiel’s chest with a dull smacking sound. “Saddle up, cowboy.”

In the half-light, Dean’s skin was blushed from heat, a slight sheen of perspiration covering him, and Castiel had the urge to taste it. He pulled down his jeans, stepping out of them to show his arousal, before climbing back into bed.

Instantly, Castiel nuzzled his nose into the crook of Dean’s neck and sucked at the skin there. Dean hummed with pleasure, and rocked his hips against Castiel’s thigh. Castiel rolled them over, placing Dean beneath him, and continued to work a bruise into that spot. He could feel Dean’s muscles constricting and writhing under him, and Dean’s hands palmed at his back like he was trying to find purchase. 

After a while, Castiel’s fist tightened over the tube and he flicked the cap open. 

“Hey, hey, Cas,” Dean said, a little urgently, before Castiel could made another move. He looked a little embarrassed now, the blush on his neck from more than just exertion. “Go slow, would’ya? Let’s try and stretch this out.” 

He didn’t know why that would embarrass Dean, but it did cause a shy smile of his own. It was nice, knowing that Dean wanted to take their time with this—to be together. 

“Of course,” Castiel told him. 

He warmed some of the slick gel in his hands as Dean said, a little more confidently now, “I mean it. Let’s keep this up until one of us is begging.”

Castiel paused momentarily to raise a brow at him. “I don’t beg,” he said gruffly, and reached behind him. 

Dean’s spine arched up off the bed, and he shifted a little to spread his legs more to give better access. Castiel watched him intently as he worked him open, not wanting to miss Dean’s initial reactions: the skewed closed eyes, the parted and full lips, the bobbing throat and ragged breaths, the way his expression twisted and his head turned to the side like his senses were overwhelmed.

Castiel liked to watch him like this, liked to know he was the one who made Dean like this.

He leaned down and mouthed at Dean’s throat, feeling the vibrations on his lips whenever a sound escaped Dean. The noises he made were loud and heady, and made Castiel roll his body into Dean’s. He tried not to, tried to contain himself and go slow, like Dean wanted. But then he added another finger, and Dean’s words became incoherent as he rocked himself against Castiel’s touch. 

Castiel gave a low, rumbling sound from his throat and scraped his teeth along Dean’s skin. He moved down his body, nipping and licking at all the sensitive parts he knew Dean liked—using all he’d learned about Dean and from Dean whenever they made love. He kissed along Dean’s hips and sucked at his inner thighs until Dean was gasping and his erection sat heavy against his stomach.

“Dammit, Cas,” he breathed. 

“What?” Castiel teased, raising his eyes to glance up at him. “Are you begging Dean?” He kissed his thigh again, and Dean bit his bottom lip to suppress a grunt. 

“Nope.” It looked like it took effort to say, and Castiel was almost disappointed. His hips kept snapping against the mattress, and he had to fight to not touch himself, knowing it would be over too soon if he did. Dean had taken his own words as a challenge, so Castiel would, too.

He angled his fingers inside Dean to hit his prostate, and Dean reacted loudly. His hips lifted off the bed and his hand flew down to palm at the base of his erection. Castiel swatted it out of the way, making Dean choke out his name. He paid him no mind and ran the tip of his finger up Dean’s length, watching him twitch. The sight alone made Castiel’s breath trip and his throat go dry.

“Okay! Okay. Uncle,” Dean called out when Castiel repeated the movement. 

Castiel knew the smile on his face was something Dean would probably describe as wicked, but he was content in his victory. He withdrew his fingers from Dean, much to Dean’s protest, and kissed his way slowly up Dean’s body—just because that’s what Dean had asked for. To go slow.

When he got to his lips, Dean called him a colorful name and grabbed him by the cheeks, bringing him in for a messy kiss. As he did, he hooked his leg around Castiel’s hips, leaving enough room for Castiel to reach between them to wrap his fingers around himself. His own touch sent firecrackers through him, but he tried to keep them from burning too bright as he lined himself up with Dean.

His free hand gripped Dean’s hip, sinking his fingers into the muscle, and lifting him slightly. He swallowed Dean’s moan as he pushed inside, and his own shout was lost against Dean’s lips. They broke apart for air as Castiel moved inside of him and Dean worked his hips to meet his thrusts. They set up a steady rhythm after a few seconds, and Castiel wondered if keeping pace with Dean like this would ever stop making him dizzy.

Dean swore again, and his hand went down between them to stroke himself, and Castiel let him this time. His other hand moved up and down Castiel’s side, across his ribs and the small of his back, to his ass. Dean felt him all over, like he was trying to make sure Castiel was real.

Castiel did the same in his own way, but Dean had always been more tactile than him. He preferred to look, to watch Dean come undone. This wasn’t a dream or a hallucination. Dean was safe and moving beneath him. He watched Dean until their eyes met, and Dean blushed a little at it.

“Quit looking at me like that,” he said, something like a smile forming on his lips, and Castiel knew he wasn’t serious.

“No.” 

“ _Cas_.”

Eventually, their pace became irregular, and Dean’s body tightened around him. Castiel felt his muscles constricting and his wings, unseen but felt, flaring out. Dean called out for him as his orgasm crashed into him, and Castiel let himself follow soon after with a moan on his lips that might have been heard from the library.

They slowed as the final aftershocks died away, and Castiel let himself lay down atop Dean’s chest, not caring about the sticky release between them. Dean hummed and combed his fingers through Castiel’s hair.

“Yeah,” he said after a few seconds, when his breath evened out. “Loud like that.”


	3. Chapter 3

“So, you gonna tell me why you jumped my bones like that last night?”

They were still in bed, the morning light shining in on them from the open curtain.  Castiel was on his side, buried under the covers to combat the bite in the air, facing Dean, who rested on his back, his head turned to make eye contact.  Their hands were in the space between them, the tips of their fingers touching as Dean idly pushed Castiel’s back and forth, up and down. He chased them whenever they slipped apart.  Castiel watched them fidget and bend at the knuckles, trying to keep up with Dean’s movements.

“I mean, not that I’m complaining.” 

Castiel sighed and closed his eyes, but his imagination instantly conjured up the sight of Dean bloody and strung up, so he rapidly blinked them open again.  He’d rather not talk about it.

“Cas?  Did you see something else?”

“I—,” he started, but changed his mind.  “No.” He didn’t want to worry Dean with what he’d seen.  If it had been a warning, Castiel would prevent it from ever becoming a reality. 

“You sure?  You seemed kinda spooked.” 

“It’s just . . . this house.  I didn’t know where you were. I got worried.” 

Dean smirked and threaded their fingers together.  He placed their conjoined hands on his chest, right above his tattoo.  “Well, I’ll be sure to tell you the next time I need to take a piss.” 

Castiel snorted.  “That won’t be necessary.”

“Oh, good.”  They stayed quiet for a few minutes, their hands still linked.  Castiel wondered if they should get up and start the day. He didn’t want to.  He wanted to stay in bed just a little longer, to not go anywhere near the library or the reminder of what he’d seen.  But they really should work. The sooner they finished their task, the sooner they could leave the house forever.

It was a shame that their time together should be like this. 

However, Dean seemed to have other ideas, because he said, “Hey, why don’t we play hooky today?”

Castiel gave a skeptical look.  “Hooky?”

“Yeah.  You know, like Ferris Bueller.  Skip out on our responsibilities.  Take the day off for no reason,” Dean continued.  “We could go into town—grab a bite, get some air.  I won’t tell Sammy if you don’t.”

It was tempting, and Castiel wanted to say yes. 

“I think we’re both getting a little stir crazy up here.”

Castiel wasn’t sure if that meant Dean no longer believed him about the things he was seeing.  But perhaps a day away would help him clear his mind. He nodded. “Okay. Let’s play hooky.”

“Ha-ha!  That’s what I’m talking about,” Dean laughed, sounding more than delighted.  He turned onto his side and shimmied in closer to Castiel, his toes frigid as they connected with Castiel’s feet under the blankets.

Castiel lifted his chin to keep their gazes locked as asked, “What do we do first?”

Dean pulled a noncommittal face and shrugged.  “Wanna fool around?”

He’d heard Dean say that before, so he knew what it meant.  Sort of. It ranged from just kissing to sex, and after last night—after the last few weeks—Castiel wanted only to keep Dean close, whatever that meant.

“Yes.  Let’s ‘fool around.’”

Dean lit up from the inside.  “Well, all right,” he said as he moved in closer.  And Castiel should have known— _fooling around_ rarely ever meant _just kissing_ with them.

 

///

 

It took them an hour to drive down the mountain to get to the nearest town of Newcomb, New York.  Castiel watched the lake glisten in the late morning sun as Impala traversed the country road winding around it.  Small homes and recreation lodges were scattered around the water, becoming more clustered as the lake flowed south to form the Hudson River.  Despite the chill in the air, families in bright colored life preservers and black wetsuits were renting kayaks and canoes from roadside shops to brave the river.

They went into the main town first, parking the Impala on the curb of a small town main street that Castiel could see both ends of just by swiveling back and forth.

“You hungry?” Dean said, not really asking.  So long as Dean had an appetite, they were going into the diner across the street no matter what Castiel’s answer was; so he nodded gently.  Dean walked around the car and slipped his rough, wind chilled hand into Castiel’s before they crossed the street. 

The diner was still serving breakfast, so Dean ordered himself waffles with a side of french fries (because “it’s close enough to lunch time, Cas”) and smothered them in maple syrup.  Castiel got the pancakes and flipped through the brochures of the town he’d picked up at the front counter. They pointed tourists in the direction of walking and hiking trails, activities on the lake, and tours of the defunct mining community the next town over.  There was also a separate brochure for the old logging facilities that once employed most of the town’s population. 

They opted for one of the walking trails near the mouth of the river.  The narrow paved path was mostly empty for the weekday, but there were a few joggers and chatting mothers or fathers pushing strollers.  They even passed a group of school children sitting on the grass, listening to their teacher explain the makeup of the river’s bedrock. 

The leaves that still remained on the trees were bright red and deep brown, a stark contrast to the blue water.  Wind kicked up off the river, combing through Castiel’s hair and making him realize just how light his coat was. That had never been an issue before.

He did his best to bury those thoughts by walking closer to Dean, and Dean didn’t seem to mind the way their shoulders brushed and their hips bumped.  He put his arm around the dip in Castiel’s back and shoved his hand into the opposite side pocket of his trench coat. 

And Castiel felt better than he had in days.  Maybe Dean had been right. Maybe all he needed was some time away from the shadowy corridors and rotting grounds of the house.  He just needed time and space to clear his head. Being amongst the churning water and laughing townspeople reminded him that there was nothing to fear.  He’d been around when this river was cut into the earth; he’d seen these people’s souls formed, might have held them in his hands. Suddenly, the old manor didn’t seem very threatening at all.

The riverwalk led them to an iron bridge that crossed over the water, and they strolled to the midpoint before stopping to lean on the railing.  There were a few sailboats spotted along the water, and Canadian geese honked overhead as they soared down south for the winter.

Dean looked over the railing and whistled at the water rushing beneath them.  “Wouldn’t wanna take a swan dive down there.”

It was a morbid thought, one that spoke to just how long Dean had been a hunter.  He never saw a bridge, just the river beneath it. But it was more than that now. Sam had told Castiel what Dean had said about his time with Michael—like he’d been drowning. Castiel touched Dean’s shoulder and said, “I’ll be sure to catch you if you fall.”

Dean beamed and turned fully towards Castiel.  “Oh, yeah? This the part where I’m supposed to say _ditto_?”  He encircled Castiel in his arms and pulled him in tight, and Castiel wanted to tell him that he already had.

But then Dean jerked him to the side, feigning throwing him over the railing, and Castiel’s heart jumped out of his chest and splashed in the water.  “Dean!”

Dean threw his head back with laughter.  Castiel should have been angrier, but the sight of Dean so relaxed and carefree after all that had happened made it impossible.  “I’m kidding! Come on. Come here.” He shifted a little to pull his phone out of his pocket. One arm still around Castiel, he thumbed at the screen until the camera was front facing.  He held it up, angling to get the two of them, the water, and the golden trees on the riverbank in the shot.

“Smile, Cas,” he said.

Castiel frowned.  “Why?”

“I need a new phone background.”

Castiel hadn’t even been aware that changing a phone’s wallpaper was an option, but Dean was grinning at the camera so he put on a smile of his own.  After Dean took the shot, he played with the phone’s settings momentarily; Castiel watched the process in case he needed it for later. When Dean clicked the sleep button off and on again to make sure the update had taken, he declared happily, “There we go!  See? Now it’s official.”

Castiel wasn’t certain what, exactly, was official, but Dean seemed confident.  Pride swelled in him at the thought Dean wanting to see a picture of the two of them every time he looked at his phone.  He let his eyes flit along Dean’s features as he put the phone back in his pocket and placed his arm back around Castiel.  Even with what little grace he had left, he was glad he could still see hints of Dean’s bright soul shining through. Its radiance only spiked when Castiel pressed a kiss to his chin and said, “I love you.” 

Dean’s ears also turned a shade pinker than they had been from the breeze.  “Ditto.” He dipped down to catch Castiel’s mouth, and Castiel could feel his grin when he mused, “We’re so gross.” 

He didn’t seem too concerned about it, and neither was Castiel. 

“Yes, we are.” 

Later that day, they returned to town and ate an early dinner in a restaurant a few streets over from main.  The portions were smaller and it was less greasy and much more expensive than the diner fare they were used to, but Dean insisted they were “treating themselves.”

For dessert, they found the local farmer’s market. Dean bought a blueberry and lemon pie, eating it straight from the box with a fork and claiming they could take the rest back to the house. But Castiel knew there weren’t going to be any leftovers. Dean also bought him an apple cider donut after blanching at the fact that Castiel had never tried one, despite knowing that up until recently Castiel didn’t eat food.

After sunset, they picked up some groceries for the next few days from the local supermarket; and Castiel didn’t feel any anxiety about returning to the house as the Impala wove its way up the mountain passes.

 

///

 

They ended up on the couch not long after they got back. Dean had tugged him over by the hand, saying he wasn’t done with him yet, and Castiel didn’t pretend to be reluctant to find out what that meant.

The two of them were beneath the large throw blanket again, Dean between Castiel’s bent knees, doing his best to make the hickey he was sucking into Castiel’s collarbone permanent. Castiel groaned against Dean’s ear, keeping one hand gripping onto the back of his head to hold him in place and the other traveling up and down Dean’s back beneath his shirt. He closed his eyes, trying hard to keep his breath from becoming too erratic, but it hitched every now and again whenever Dean’s teeth grazed the tender skin he was working on.

When Dean blew onto the wet mark, Castiel formed his name on his lips. Dean made a low rumbling sound and then got back to work. Castiel was hard, and he could feel Dean was, too, each time he pressed his hips languidly down against Castiel. He thought maybe Dean could bring him to completion just like this, with the slow, easy slide of his body and whatever heavenly thing he was currently doing with his tongue.

This sensation was maddening, but strangely comfortable, too. Especially when Dean pushed down even further, and Castiel’s hips involuntarily snapped up to follow as he drew away. They chased each other a few more times, grinding and rocking and moving against each other, and Castiel thought he wanted to feel like this all the time, but only with Dean. No one else. He never thought Dean’s body could be addicting. 

Dean’s breath was becoming shallower. He rested his forehead against Castiel’s collar. “How many times you gonna make me come in twenty-four hours, Cas?” he joked.

Castiel swallowed down the dryness in his throat. “At least twice more.”

Dean gave a whining noise and exclaimed, “Oh, _baby_ ,” as if Castiel had just made him the happiest man on earth. He planted kisses up the center of Castiel’s neck, and then on his jaw and chin, and finally on his lips. 

As they kissed, Dean dragged his palm down Castiel’s side, over his hip, and up his outer thigh until it came to rest on his knee. It only stayed for a few seconds before fitting between them and palming at the base of Castiel’s cock through his jeans.

Castiel gave a choked sound and rocked into the touch. He threw his head back, and Dean instantly had his mouth on the exposed line of his throat. He buried his fingers deeper into Dean’s hair. 

He let his eyes flutter open as Dean kneaded harder against him, but he suddenly couldn’t feel Dean’s hands and mouth on him as all. There was the dark figure of a woman in the corner of the room—the same woman he’d seen outside the other day. 

Castiel gasped, and Dean must have heard the difference between a horrified intake and a delighted one because he immediately stopped what he was doing and looked up. His guilty face obscured the view of the woman. “What? What’d I do?”

Castiel jerked to look around him, and found the woman was gone. At the same time as he realized that, he was able to exhale.

“There was—,” he tried to say, his wide eyes fixed on the corner. 

Dean’s face tightened and he looked over his shoulder, but he let his guard down once he saw for himself that they were alone. His eyes found their way back to Castiel, expression inscrutable. Castiel shimmed further up the couch from beneath Dean and got into a sitting position. He put his head in his hands and rubbed hard at his eyes. The woman’s figure was burned behind his lids. 

“So much for getting some air today,” Dean muttered as he sat back on his ankles. The comment made Castiel snap with viper-like aggression.

“I know what I saw, Dean!”

Dean appeared shocked for a moment at the outburst, and Castiel regretted it instantly. None of this was Dean’s fault, but he wasn’t providing any answers, either. 

Reeling himself back in, Castiel said, “I don’t understand this, Dean. Whatever’s in this house, it’s calling out to me.” 

Dean bristled, clearly thinking that whatever was haunting Castiel didn’t want to make friends. Thankfully, he didn’t say it, because Castiel’s nerves were frayed and he couldn’t hear that aloud right now. 

Instead, Dean rolled the tension in his shoulders and tilted his neck from side to side to pop it.

“It’s too much. The shadows, the visions, the whispers coming from the hallway.”

“What hallway?” Dean asked, like it might be important.

Castiel, however, didn’t see why it mattered. “I told you, the end hallway.”

Dean pulled a face, seeming confused. “ _What_ end hallway?” 

He wasn’t surprised that Dean didn’t know to where he was referring. The house was expansive, and Dean so rarely wandered into the parts he didn’t have to go into. He kept almost exclusively to the bedroom, the library, and the kitchen. The only time he ever went into the living room was with Castiel.

“It’s at the back of the house. The one with the window at the end,” Castiel huffed. There were more important things to discuss, such as finding out what was haunting the house so they could stop it.

But Dean was looking at him like he had two heads, and creeping cold hands tightened themselves slowly around Castiel’s insides. 

“Cas, I went all up and down this place last night,” Dean said, “And I didn’t see any end hallway with a window.”

No, that couldn’t have been right. Castiel stared blankly at him. “What?”

Maybe he’s missed it. Maybe he just hadn’t noticed. 

But that would be unlike him. 

“I’m telling you, there isn’t one.” 

No, there was. Castiel had been in it multiple times. He’d prove it. He got up from the couch and ordered, “Follow me. I’ll show you.” And Dean was tentative for a few beats, glancing up at Castiel like he wasn’t sure if Castiel should be on his feet. 

“ _Dean_.” 

“Okay. Show me.”

They went upstairs together, making a left at the top of the stairwell. Castiel had found his way back from the hallway many times after he’d gotten lost. He just had to retrace his steps. However, when he got to the spot that should have opened up to the dead end hallway, there was nothing. It was a wall and a door leading into an untouched bedroom.

Castiel blinked, looking this way at that. Maybe he’d made a wrong turn again. They would just have to go back to the top of the stairs and try again.

“Cas,” Dean said haltingly before Castiel could suggest doing such a thing. “You’re freaking me out.” 

“It’s supposed to be here,” Castiel told him, as if speaking the words would make it so. It didn’t. The bedroom door remained, and Castiel quickly tore through it, letting the door rattle and slam against the wall. 

It was just a bedroom.

“I don’t understand.”

He felt numb. He felt like someone was watching him. The only person with him was Dean, who was walking around to stand in front of him. There was a kind of panic in the greens of his eyes. 

“You _sure_ this is where it was?”

Castiel nodded, feeling his heart jackknife into his throat. “It was _here_ , Dean!”

“Okay,” Dean hushed, holding out his hand to grab Castiel’s arm. Castiel swatted him away.

“You don’t believe me?” 

“I believe you,” Dean told him, but there was a _but_ to that sentence. “But there’s no hallway here, Cas. Look, man, I think—,” he paused and pressed his lips into a line, as if searching for the most delicate way to say what he wanted to. “You were probably just dreaming.” 

Castiel scoffed out a bitter laugh and turned away. It only made Dean talk louder. 

“You’re still getting used to sleeping again, okay? Dreams can be weird, ‘specially in a creepy ass place like this. They can seem real, but—.” 

“They _are_ real, Dean!” Castiel round on him, seething. Dean, of all people, shouldn’t have been denying the possibility of a haunting. 

Dean paused again, licking his lips. “Okay. Say there are ghosts. Why haven’t I seen any yet?”

Castiel didn’t have an answer for that. He looked at the carpeted floor, searching the patterns in the floral rug for answers. His voice was small when he said, “I don’t know.” 

Dean sighed tiredly, clearly at a loss on what to do. He pulled at his mouth with one hand, and then gestured out with it before giving up and letting it drop to his side. “Cas, you gotta tell me what you want me to do here. Because I got no idea.” 

Castiel closed his eyes. He knew the hallway was there. It should have been there. He could see the moonlight in the window conjured up by his imagination.

“I want you to believe me.”

When he opened his eyes again, Dean was giving him a tight, baleful look. Eventually, he said, “Maybe you should just get some sleep, all right?” He nodded and pushed a smile, low-wattage and meant to encourage. It was the kind of smile he gave when he was afraid, but putting everyone else’s needs before his own. “What d’you say? You look beat, and I know I am.” 

Deflection wasn’t going to solve the issue, but Dean had his hand on Castiel’s shoulder, and he was shepherding him out of the room. And Castiel didn’t know what else to do. He had to _think_ , but every time he tried his mind became clouded and muddled.

Right before Dean closed the door to the bedroom, Castiel looked inside. He was sure he saw someone standing against the window.

 

///

 

“Cas.”

Castiel startled.  He hadn’t even known Dean was awake.  He’d been snoring a minute ago.

“What is it, Dean?”

It must have been close to 3AM.  Castiel hadn’t been able to sleep.  He didn’t want to—just in case. He stayed in bed, his eyes fixed on the door, and on the unbroken salt line across it.  Every time his eyes felt weighted, the wind outside would beat against the house, causing bumps and creaks, and adrenaline would spike in his chest. 

Behind his back, Dean hadn’t any trouble falling asleep.  He’d been out almost as soon as he hit the pillow, and slept soundly ever since.  Until, it seemed, now. 

“Cas, you got your ears on?” Dean whispered, and Castiel barely heard it even though he was laying down not a foot away from him.

The question didn’t make any sense, not in this context.  Dean sometimes asked him that while praying, but never in a verbal conversation.  Castiel pinched his brow and rolled over to face him. “Of course, I—.”

He froze.  Dean was still asleep, his breathing slow and steady, his mouth slack and his eyes flickering behind their lids in a dream.

“Cas.”  That was Dean’s voice.  Dean was speaking to him, but his lips weren’t moving.  And he was unconscious, so he wasn’t praying. Whatever Castiel was hearing, it wasn’t Dean.

There were whispers.  They seeped in from all sides, overlapping and intermixing.  They were louder than they had been before, and Castiel recognized the tone of cadence of Dean’s voice in them.  He caught a word here and there, but none that allowed him to piece together what was being said. 

Castiel’s senses were suddenly on overload.  He was all too aware of the wind shaking the house and anxiety prickling his skin on the back of his neck.  His heart thundered and his grace—his grace stayed silent. It offered no protection, no aid, no matter how he willed it. 

There was a creak from the doorway.  Castiel whipped around, his heart jumping when he saw the shadow the little girl staring back at him.  She stood still in the middle of the doorframe, right beyond the salt line. 

“Who are you?” Castiel heard himself say.

The girl didn’t answer.  She turned, showing him a profile with a rounded button nose.  She stepped forward, slowly disappearing beyond the doorway. Castiel knew he needed to follow her.  He jumped out of bed, only stopping to retrieve the salt rifle from the duffle bag. His hands first reached for his angel blade, hovering over the shining metal and itching to pick it up.  It would do no good against ghosts. 

He took a steadying breath before stepping over the salt line and looking down the hallway.  The girl was at the end of it, again remaining still and facing him, as if she were waiting for him.  When he started pacing for her, she unhurriedly turned again and walked around the corner. Castiel had plenty of time to make out her jeans, her sneakers, her hooded sweater.  He still couldn’t see her face.

The girl remained just ahead of him, close enough for him to follow but far enough that he could never see her properly.  He didn’t try to catch up, knowing it would be useless. He didn’t even try to speak to her, and she said nothing to him.

He knew where she was taking him.  He’d known before he’d even gotten out of bed.  With every step, a cold numbness crept closer to his core.  She was talking him to the hallway at the back of the house—the one that didn’t exist.

When they got there, she rounded the corner into it, and he hesitated momentarily before squaring himself and following.  She stood in the center of the hall, the light of the moon coming through the window spread across the carpet, ending just where the toes of her shoes began.

He watched as, suddenly, she stepped into the silver light.  Her blonde hair was illuminated in it, and she turned around to face him.

Castiel didn’t know what to make of it.  He wasn’t sure what exactly he was seeing, because the girl in front of him—she was _alive_.  He knew she was. Someone would have called if she weren’t. She was alive, only older now.

“Claire?”

She appeared to be roughly the same age she had been when he’d first met her, when Castiel had taken her father as a vessel.  When he’d taken her as a vessel. 

Claire didn’t answer.  She stared at him blankly.

Castiel realized the whispering voices had started up again.  They sounded muffled now, like they were coming through the other side of a wall.  Claire looked at the bedroom door to her right, to Castiel’s left. She walked towards it and twisted the knob open.  The voice got louder, and then she walked inside the room. 

He knew he had to follow her.  He had to face whatever was inside, to end this.  He tightened his grip around the handle of the sawed off, and gripped its barrel with his opposite hand.  He trained it forward, as he’d seen Sam and Dean do hundreds of times, as they’d taught him to do. He walked towards the room. 

Claire was sitting on the carpet inside next to the side of the bed, her legs crossed in front of her.  She was looking up at the two figures over her. Jimmy Novak was standing, his head bent and his eyes cast down on his daughter before him.  There was a woman sitting on the bed, her boots planted on the floor beneath her long dress. Her long brown hair was done up on her head. She, too, was looking up at Jimmy—her great grandson. 

Elizabeth Novak.  Castiel had taken her briefly as a vessel for his first mission on earth since heaven unleashed a plague on Egypt. 

Castiel wanted to ask what was going on, but he couldn’t find his voice.  It was trapped in the throats of the three people before him. Dean’s whispers were all around him now, and he felt like he was in the eye of a storm. 

In sync, they all looked up at him, three identical sets of blue eyes boring into his own.  Then, they turned to look at the wall to Castiel’s left across the room. He felt like his chest might burst if he swiveled to follow their gaze. 

Grinding his teeth, he looked.

It was Dean.  He was pinned against the wall by hooks and chains, body raw and bloody as Castiel had seen it in the library.  He head was bent to one side, his mouth moving again in whispered prayer. This time, the sound filled Castiel to the brim. 

Even though Castiel had seen it before, it was still a shock to his system.  He closed his eyes tightly, willing it all away. He told himself that it wasn’t really Dean.  Dean was still in bed, asleep, and Castiel had to get back to him. He had to get back to him because he’d left him alone.  Because if this was a warning, if the house was after Dean—.

Castiel tore from the room, but slid to a halt when he entered the hallway, because it wasn’t the hallway anymore.  He wasn’t even certain he was even in the house. The hall he found himself in was blinding white, pristine and bleached and clean.  He squinted up at the overhead lights, but couldn’t see any bulbs or fixtures. The light simply just was. It came from everywhere, shining in every molecule around him. 

He was in heaven. 

But he couldn’t be.  Heaven was closed. Naomi wouldn’t open it again unless she needed to, and certainly not for him.  This had to be another trick.

Castiel turned around to face the door he’d just come from, hoping to find his way back to Dean.  He couldn’t even hear his phantom whispers anymore. The door was closed now, white and uniform to the other two across the hall.  Except this one had Dean’s name on the plaque. 

_Dean Winchester  
_ _1979 - 2008_

“Dean,” he tripped out, his fist flying to the knob.  He jiggled the handle hard, but it wouldn’t budge. He took the rifle in his hand and slammed the butt against the knob, but it proved ineffective.  He stepped back, holding his palm out to the door. His grace remained dormant, sitting as heavy as stone in his gut. He grunted, bearing his teeth, and tried again with all his might.  Nothing.

With a groan of anger and frustration, he slammed his shoulder into the door.  It didn’t even rattle on its hinges. 

Maybe there was another way back to Dean.

He looked around at the door behind him and to the right.  There was another plaque on it.

_Sam Winchester  
_ _1983 - 2010_

He rushed towards it and tried the knob. A charge of electricity zapped his fingers around the metal. He hissed, snapping his hand away momentarily out of reflex, but powered through.  Again, the door didn’t open. 

There was one door remaining to the left of him.  He looked at it, unable to see whose name was engraved into the plaque do to the glare of the moonlight.  Slowly, he walked for it.

_Castiel_

There were no dates beneath his name.  The year of his creation could not be quantified.  It came before humans began to record time. His death . . . he wasn’t certain.  Once, he’d thought it would be after human history had long turned to dust. Now, he didn’t know.

Castiel swallowed.  His warped reflection stared back at him in the polished metal of the plaque.  He reached out, his hand hovering over the handle, fingers itching towards it. The door opened easily.

There was nothing inside.  Nothing at all. It was pure, endless black.  Empty. He was afraid that, if he went inside, he’d be swallowed whole.  He’d be made to sleep forever. 

But the door had opened.  If this were the way back to Dean, he’d risk it.

He stepped through the threshold, into the cold void.  He couldn’t see a floor beneath his bare feet, but they connected with one, anyway.  He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see heaven’s white corridor. There was nothing now.  Only more emptiness.

He faced forward again and peered around, wondering where to go.  There was no way out he could see, but he also wouldn’t get anywhere standing still.  He would start walking—he would find his way out, like he had before. 

He tried lifting his foot to take a step, but he couldn’t.  It was stuck to the floor, braced there, paralyzed. He looked down and urged himself forward again.  His knees didn’t even bend.

“What the—?” 

Something wet and thick began lapping around his feet, breaking against him like waves.  It rose upwards, covering his skin. It was cold and absolute and familiar. 

“No.” 

Leviathan.

He dropped the gun, instantly losing it to the black flood.  He doubled over and tugged at his leg with both hands, attempting to rip it upwards, away from the black.  The sludge wouldn’t release him. 

He stood up again, his harsh breath filling up the void around him.  The black was rising up past his ankles, breaking against his legs.

He closed his eyes again, told himself this wasn’t real.  He was dreaming. He was safe. He would wake up in bed next to Dean. 

Dean. 

“Dean!” 

If he called loud enough, maybe Dean would hear him.  Maybe he’d find him. They could protect each other. They could run to the Impala and leave this place forever, the records and secrets the house held be damned.

“Dean!” 

He kept shouting as the black made its way up his torso, constricting his chest and trapping his hands to his sides.  It came up over his shoulders, slid up his neck. He lifted his chin high to keep it from his face. It didn’t work for long.  He could feel the black on his cheeks, taste it—foul and brackish—on his tongue. He kept shouting until it went down his throat, silencing him.  Until he was breathing it in, until it was all he could see; until the rushing sound it made as it rose was all he could hear. Until it suffocated him. 

And then he was free, and still shouting.  He was on the floor, a figure hovering over him, holding him down by the shoulders.  Castiel railed against it, desperate to get away, to get to Dean.

“Cas!  Cas! Dammit, it’s me!”

Dean’s voice had healing powers.  He let it wash over him, easing his body and letting great bouts of air sooth his burning lungs.  “Dean?”

“Fuck, Cas.  What the hell happened?” 

Dean had gone white, his eyes full of barely controlled fear as he scanned Castiel up and down for injury.  Castiel put his arms around Dean’s neck and pulled him in hard for an embrace. He wouldn’t let go, he’d die before he let go.  After a few seconds, Dean’s hands came up gently on his back.

“Dean,” he said again, relief soaring through him.  He looked at their surroundings. They were in the bedroom at the back of the house, where the end hallway should have been. 

Dean pulled back, and Castiel reluctantly let him. 

“Dean, I saw—.”  The rest of his words were swallowed by a yell.  Dean’s eyes were black.

“What? Cas!” Dean shouted, and when he blinked, his eyes turned back to normal.  It should have settled Castiel, but it didn’t.

He felt helpless, broken, weak.  “Why is this happening, Dean?”

Dean’s expression softened, going from worry to sympathy to pain.  He wrapped Castiel back in his arms, and Castiel buried his face into Dean’s shoulder.


	4. Chapter 4

“Yeah, I just think it’s a good idea if we head on back home.”

Dean glanced over his shoulder at Castiel sitting at the kitchen table, but Castiel didn’t know if he were checking up on him or reminding himself that he was there so he should lower his voice.  Regardless, he turned back around and growled into the phone, “Because I said so, Sam.” 

He was starting the get agitated, and from the tone of his electronic mumbles that Castiel could hear, so was Sam.

“No, we didn’t have a—,” Dean sighed.  He brought his hand up to rub at his forehead.  Castiel watched the tense line of his shoulders slacken and shift.  “We’re fine. But we did our part. We’re like, halfway done. Send someone else to finish up.  It’s busy work, anyway, Sammy. I need to kill something.”

He looked over his shoulder again, and offered Castiel a tight smile.  Yes, he was definitely checking up on him. Castiel let out a weary breath and looked down at his hands on the table. 

Dean didn’t really believe the house was haunted.  If he had, he would have wanted to stay and take care of it.  He thought it was something else—that something wrong with Castiel.  And maybe he was right. Maybe something _was_ wrong with him. 

And to leave because of that—to waste the days it would take for another team to come out here and finish what they started, all while Michael was still at large—was foolish.  Castiel didn’t care if he couldn’t rest easily at night, so long as Dean could. When Michael was gone, they’d both sleep better, despite the nightmares, and the key to that could very well be inside these walls. 

He wouldn’t leave until they’d searched every page, exhausted every option the records in this house provided.  He couldn’t, for Dean’s sake. 

“Dean, we should stay,” he said, feeling his stomach churn at his own words.  He’d said them quickly, as if to surprise himself, not wanting to change his mind because of doubt.  Dean stopped mid-sentence and froze. After a second, he turned around. 

“What?” 

Castiel stood up from the table and crossed the room.  He gingerly took the phone away from Dean’s ear, and Dean didn’t protest.  He was staring at Castiel the whole time as if in shock. Castiel put the phone on speaker. 

“Sam, we’re staying,” he said decisively.

There was silence on the other end, until Sam made an unsure sound and said, “You sure, Cas?”

Castiel swallowed down his temper.  He wasn’t an invalid. He didn’t need to be coddled, much less by the two men he once pulled from the fires of hell.  “Yes. We don’t have time to spare. If there’s a way to take down Michael here, we’ll find it.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean look away with a mixture of guilt and anxiety.  He knew they were only staying for him.

“Cas, we don’t—,” he began to say, but Castiel held his hand up to silence him.

With all the bravado he could muster, he told Sam, “We’re staying.”

“Okay,” Sam said, accepting it.  “Let me know if you guys find anything.”

“Of course.”  The call ended after that. 

When Castiel gave him his attention, Dean bent his knees slightly and gestured out his hands as if to say “what the hell” with his entire body.  But it wasn’t as if leaving had been Castiel’s idea in the first place.

“I’m fine, Dean,” he assured him.

“You kidding me?” Dean spat out immediately, as if he’d anticipated Castiel’s words.  “What happened last night—that wasn’t _fine_ , Cas.”

“We have more important things to focus on, and you know it.”  Castiel wouldn’t hinder that. So, yes, in the grand scheme of things, “I’ll be fine.”

Dean huffed and rolled his neck before hanging his head.  Finally, he conceded, “Fine.” And then he started out of the kitchen, moving as if he could change the direction of earth’s rotation with his momentum alone. 

“Where are you going?” Castiel called after him. 

“To get a shovel.”

Castiel sighed, not sure he wanted to know to answer.  “Why?”

Dean turned around right in the kitchen’s threshold.  “I’m gonna torch everyone in that bone yard out back.”

Perhaps it was unnecessary.  Dean certainly thought so, but it would give him something to do to address the issue head on, in any way he could.  Even if he didn’t believe there were any ghosts present. And Castiel was starting to think the same. 

“And if that doesn’t solve anything?” he asked. 

Dean’s brow wrinkled in question.  “Meaning?” 

Was he really the one who would have to say it aloud?  Was Dean really too stubborn? “Meaning, what if it isn’t a spirit?”

Dean took a step towards him, shoulders hunched, and then stopped abruptly.  “What the fuck else would it be, Cas?” 

Castiel looked off in thought.  He didn’t know, exactly, but it could have been anything: a sleep disorder, hallucinations, dementia.  The human brain was a fragile, imperfect thing. “I don’t know. Jimmy didn’t have any family history of a mental illness, but this vessel has gone through a lot.  Its facilities could be damaged. Without my grace to sustain it anymore, those damages could be coming to light.” 

Dean stayed quiet for a long time, his eyes hard and the muscles jumping in his jaw.  It made Castiel a little dizzy. What if something was wrong with him and Dean didn’t want him anymore?  His grace, he could learn to do without, but his mind? He truly would be useless, without anything to contribute, as he’d been the last time he’d lost his mental capabilities.  Perhaps whatever was happening now was left over from that time—given years to fester. Maybe Dean was thinking the same thing. 

“But that’s not Jimmy anymore,” Dean said, and the statement confused Castiel.  He tilted his head to the side as Dean went on, “It’s you, Cas. Jimmy’s dead—been dead a long time, and his body—,” he let out a sardonic breath.  “It was blown to smithereens, remember? _Twice_. And Chuck brought _you_ back, not Jimmy. And even if that didn’t take, me and Sam—we burned your bones a couple years ago.  Far as I’m concerned, that—,” he pointed at Castiel, “was never Jimmy’s body. So, how the hell could you have his ‘damaged mental facilities,’ or whatever?”

Castiel blinked.  He’d never really thought about it like that before.  He still had all of Jimmy’s scars, all of his freckles and birthmarks, all of his traits.  This body may have been a replica, but it was an exact replica. 

Castiel’s own form was that of an angel: glorious, larger than any human body should contain.  But he’d been in this body a long time, and sometimes he needed reminding of what he really was. 

Maybe Dean did, too.  Or maybe he knew all along and he was only saying this to convince himself that Castiel wasn’t a “stone cold body snatcher,” as Nick had put it before disappearing to parts unknown.

“If that’s true, it’s a still a copy of Jimmy Novak,” he said.

Dean paced closer to him.  “So? The Lion King’s a copy of Hamlet.  Doesn’t make them the same movie.” 

Castiel knitted his brows together.  “Did you just compare me to the Lion King?” 

Dean shrugged.  “It’s a good movie.  Point is—this isn’t Jimmy.  It’s not his vessel, not his brain.  It’s you, Cas. Just you.” He put his hands on Castiel’s jaw, and Castiel shivered slightly when he felt Dean’s thumb stroke his skin.  “And, when I look at you, I just see you.”

He couldn’t help the goosebumps that raised on his skin now.  His eyes flitted over Dean’s face, and he didn’t know what to say.  It was an interesting concept, to have his identity tied to this body in Dean’s eyes.  There were times he thought he shared that same view. He always told himself he wouldn’t take another vessel, maybe because he didn’t want to ruin another human’s life, but it was more than that.  He didn’t _want_ another vessel. Perhaps he wasn’t always completely comfortable in this body, but he couldn’t imagine occupying another. 

And Dean—this is how he saw him.  This was a part of Castiel that he wanted.

“And I’m sure as hell not in love with Jimmy.  That’s all you, too, Cas,” Dean told him. He patted his cheek gently before letting his hands slip away.  “So, you wanna stay here? Let’s go salt and burn some bones.”

Castiel gave him a soft smile, and nodded.  He wanted Dean to be right. He didn’t want to be wearing thin.  “Okay.”

 

///

 

The rain must have woken him up.  It pounded down on the roof like bullets, but Castiel knew it would pass soon.  The clouds above were moving quickly with the winds that whooshed and broke against the house.  Their dense molecules expanded and constricted as they unleashed their chaos. But such a fervent storm never lasted long, and soon the only thing left would be puddles and mud. 

In Castiel’s groggy state, he was more concerned about the house.  Rain like this would surely leak inside, but he was content to ignore that until morning. 

Eyes still closed, he flexed his fingers, trying to set right the discord between himself and his vessel.  When he settled, he rolled over to wrap his arm around Dean. The only things he caught were bed sheets.

He blinked his eyes open, now fully alert.  It was still dark outside—too dark for simply cloud cover.  It must have been pre-dawn. 

He lifted his head up and squinted around the room, dark in the absence of moonlight.  Dean wasn’t there. It made Castiel’s pulse jump as he called out for him to no answer.  The house seemed to swallow his voice whole. It was no match for the rain.

When Castiel blinked, he imagined Dean’s broken body, strung up and beaten bloody. 

No.

Dean probably only got up to use the bathroom.  He’d be back soon. He would.

Castiel couldn’t convince himself.  He waited a whole three seconds before jumping out of bed and moving into the hallway.  It was empty. He tried not to rush as he made for the bathroom, but dropped all pretenses when he found it dark and vacant.

Thousands of needles pricked at his flesh, and his breath rattled against his teeth.

Dean.  He had to find him.

He turned abruptly, ready to begin his search, and nearly reeled backwards at the sight before him.  The three apparitions of the Novaks were standing along the walls. They were each at varying feet from one another, leading him down the hall like a trail of breadcrumbs.  Still in their silence, they stared blankly ahead and nothing.

Castiel controlled himself, told himself they weren’t real—that the house was playing tricks on him.  That the house had Dean and he needed to find him. That overwhelmed his fear, but didn’t snuff it out completely.  He found himself holding his breath as he walked past the apparitions, half-expecting to feel their fingers shoot out to claw at him at any moment.  However, they didn’t even appear to register him.

When he turned into the next hallway, they were there, too.  He should have known they would be, but the shock of it spiked and settled into unease.  Bile sloshed in his gut and rose up to a burning pressure in the back of his throat as he moved to the first door.  He ripped it open. The Novaks were inside, painted in the spotted shadows of the rain on the window. Dean was not. 

They were back in the hall when he stuck his head out and moved down to the next door, and the next.  As he searched the upstairs, he could feel the adrenaline pulse through him more rapidly with every moment. His grace offered no aid. 

Wherever he turned, no matter where he looked, the Novaks followed him.  He knew where they were taking him. Half of him hoped he would find Dean there; the other half of him prayed he wouldn’t. 

As he drew closer to the back of the house, the whispers began to rattle in.  At first, they were low hisses in the dark, and they might have been the rain and the wind.  But then the sound of the rain slowed to a distant patter, and the voices grew. Castiel heard his name murmured in them, beckoning him on in the familiar vibrations and rhythm of Dean’s voice. 

When he turned into the mouth of the end hallway, the Novaks weren’t inside.  Neither was Dean—just his disembodied voice. The doors to the three bedrooms were closed, but Castiel didn’t bother to look inside.  He knew they would be empty.

His eyes were fixed on the window opposite him. It was streaked with raindrops, slicing jagged tracks against the glass, and the clouds outside had parted just enough to let a ray of silver light cast spidery shadows on the carpet.

That cold warning spread across the back on his neck like black ice.  It pooled into his shoulders and dripped down his spine. And there was the urge again, the curiosity and the morbid fascination, to move forward and look outside the window.  The whispers swarmed around him, always a step ahead of him as he tentatively paced towards the end of the hall, one bare foot in front of the other. 

When he got to the window, he looked outside at the distant mountain range looming, the faint outline of the trees swaying in the wind.  He looked down. There was the statue of the angel, still poised for battle, but it was lit up in a radiant blue. Its wings were like fire, absolute in their fury, and a ring of light haloed the head.  It was the sight of an angel’s grace wedged into the body of a human being.

Castiel’s own grace reacted.  It fizzled inside of him, running through his body to the tips of his fingers and toes as if searching for a way out.  It misaligned with his skin, tugged and stretched his vessel with the last of its strength. He blinked to get himself in control, and when he opened his eyes again, the statue was just cold stone. 

And he understood.  He knew. 

This house wasn’t haunted.  He wasn’t going insane. He certainly wasn’t dreaming.

He was dying.  Or, at least, parts of him were.

The moment he realized this, the whispers became clearer, louder.  They were Dean’s prayers. Castiel listened to the prayers overlap until they became indistinguishable.  It was every prayer Dean had ever said to him, whether he meant to or not—the prayers Castiel had answered, the ones he couldn’t.  The ones he whispered in Purgatory in desperation. The ones he’d said in hell without any real belief, thinking he’d never be saved.

Those were the loudest.  They flooded Castiel’s mind and threatened to drag him down into the pit with them. 

He wouldn’t go.  He wouldn’t die. His family needed him—Jack and Mary and Sam.  Dean.

He wouldn’t die.  He didn’t want to.

He flew from the hallway, his feet pounding against the carpet and slapping against the wooden floors as they carried him swiftly towards the bedroom.  Dean still wasn’t there when he got inside, but he couldn’t focus on that now. It worried him that Dean was missing, but he knew now that he was in no real danger.  Castiel was the one in trouble. 

He went to the weapons duffle and pushed the flaps to the side.  His angel blade sat bright and silver among the muted blacks and browns of the guns and rifles.  He picked it up, but could hardly feel it in his hand. He tried to tighten his fist around it, but he was shaking down to his bones. 

He had to do this.  He couldn’t let himself waste away.  He needed to rid himself of the plague inside his head before he lost his stomach for it.

He stood up, and turned the tip of the blade towards himself, angling it at his throat.  The voice in his head was growing ever-louder. 

But something rose up over it, a single word: “Cas!”

Castiel knew it was real.  He spun around quickly to find Dean in the doorway.  He was rushing in, one hand held up beseechingly and the other around a glass of water that he set down on the nearest flat surface. 

“Cas, what the hell?” Dean yelled, and Castiel had the fleeting thought that maybe he was imagining this. 

He shook his head.  “Stay back, Dean,” he warned.  “I have to do this.”

“Do what?” Dean challenged.  “Kill yourself?”

“I’m trying to save myself!” 

If the words threw Dean, he didn’t let it show.  He soldiered on. “Cas, this isn’t saving yourself.  Just put the blade down, okay? Give it to me.” He held out his hand and took a hesitant step forward.

Castiel was tempted.  He would do anything not to give this up, but it was necessary.  If a limb was infected, it must be cut off to save the rest of the body.  This was no different. He had to stop the disease from spreading. He had to live. 

“You don’t understand, Dean.  I have to do this.” 

“No, you don’t, man!” Dean shouted, and he sounded panicked now.  Getting himself back under control, he licked his lips and said, “Cas—.” 

“Dean.”  His tone was sharp.  He had to make Dean understand.  “It’s my grace. That’s why all this is happening.  The prayers, the visions of my vessels and—and of you in hell.”  Dean blinked and straightened out. Castiel kept on, “The hallway.  It’s heaven. I’m imagining heaven.” He was imagining home; it was calling to him.  The last of his grace clinging to it, fighting to get back so it could heal itself, trying to tell Castiel where to go—because he was weak and lost and needed to go home.  But that wasn’t an option.

And he was already home. 

“All of it, Dean,” he said, feeling his throat constrict and eyes well.  And what a human reaction that was. “My grace is dying. These are its death rattles.”

He tightened his hand over his blade, more determined than ever.

Dean jumped.  “Cas, dammit, let’s talk about this!” 

There was nothing to talk about.  Castiel swallowed hard, steeling himself.  He had to do this. He was choosing to do this, to live as a human rather than die as an angel.  He’d be okay. He wasn’t useless without his powers. He wasn’t weak. He drowned out all the doubts telling him he was.

He edged his blade closer to his skin.

Dean was on him instantly, his hands gripping Castiel’s wrists and trying to pull them away.  Castiel resisted, fighting back. The point of the blade bobbed back and forth, and Castiel swiveled to narrowly avoid it.  He tried to turn away, but Dean only wrapped himself around Castiel’s back and reached over him, scrambling for the blade.

Muttering a quick apology, Castiel elbowed him in the nose.  Dean reeled back, hands on his face. “Son of a—!”

Castiel didn’t stick around to hear the rest of it.  He sprinted out of the room and down the hall. Momentarily, he heard Dean rushing after him, calling his name.  He had to go somewhere Dean couldn’t find him. 

The end hallway. 

He ran for it. 

But, when he rounded the corner into it, Dean was already there.  Castiel didn’t know how he’d beat him to it. 

Dean was at the end of the hall, his back to Castiel as he faced the window.  The pale moonlight bathed over him, casting a long shadow behind him on the floor.  He didn’t turn around.

Castiel came to a running halt, his heels burning with friction against the carpet.  Dean paid him no mind. Castiel could hardly make out his reflection on the streaked glass. 

“Dean?” he heard himself say, his voice barely above a whisper. 

He stepped forward, wanting to plead with Dean to let him do this—to choose his own end, to rip the angel from him and become mortal, to still want him when he was human. 

“Dean, please,” he begged, something heavy settling in his stomach.  “Let me do this. I don’t have a choice, Dean.” 

Dean didn’t move. 

And then Castiel heard him call his name from somewhere within the house.  He froze, the anguish in his gut turning to ice. 

The figure before him began to move.  It tilted its head slowly to the left, bending as far as it could go before incrementally bringing it back up.  It then stretched towards the right. Castiel thought of the wound he’d seen in Dean’s neck in the library, like something was hooked into it.  A vision of the horrors of hell. 

But this wasn’t that.  This was different. It was too controlled, not pained.  Like Dean was trying to orient himself—to fit into his own skin.

Castiel felt his breath stop.  He said, “Michael.” 

Michael looked over his shoulder unhurriedly, his profile a silhouette against the window.  He turned fully to face Castiel, staring at him as silent as a stone. Castiel doubled his grip on his blade, prepping for a fight.

Michael’s eyes lit up the darkness in a pale blue.

“Cas!”

Castiel jumped at the sudden noise behind him, his nerves setting themselves on fire.  He spun around without thinking and drove his blade forward until flesh and bone stopped it with a dull squelch. 

Dean inhaled, his face instantly going pale and expressionless.  Castiel felt the color drain from his own cheeks.

This was real.

Castiel let the blade clatter to the floor.  Dean’s hands were cradling the wound in his stomach, blood seeping through his fingers.  Castiel briefly realized they were no longer in the hallway. They were in the bedroom that stood in its place.

The shock must have died away, because Dean let out the breath he’d been holding and started heaving. The noises were wet and thick and hurried. Castiel called his name again and again, repeating it like a mantra.  He tried to put more pressure on the wound as he guided Dean to the floor. 

Beads of sweat prickled on Dean’s hairline, and his breathe stuttered.  “Cas—.”

“I’m sorry, Dean, I’m sorry!”  He put his hands on Dean’s cheek, realizing too late they were stained with red.  He felt a sob escape him as he focused on the wound again. Dean gripped the front of Castiel’s shirt, twisting it as he struggled to keep himself conscious. 

“It’s okay, Dean.  I’ll—I’m going to heal you,” Castiel told him.  He heard the doubt in his own voice, the lack of faith.  He had to try. He had to succeed. 

“I’m going to heal you, Dean.”  He tried to steady his voice that time, but it still trembled. 

He put his hands over Dean’s gut, pushing Dean’s hold out of the way over his wound.  He winced at the strangled noise it elicited from Dean, but he had to keep going. He closed his eyes, focusing on the grace within him.  It used to course through his veins like magma, to ignite in his heart and blaze against his senses. It did nothing. It sparked and refused to light.

“No.”

Dean’s breathing was becoming shallower and arrhythmic.  His skin was waxy in the moonlight. “Cas—.” His fist slackened on Castiel’s shirt, leaving only wrinkles behind. 

But there was still life in him, and Castiel would not let it fade away.  He couldn’t. Not this life. This life that he’s held in his hands, mended its broken soul and mangled flesh, breathed back into being.  This life. The one that mattered to him more than his own.

They just got him back.  If Castiel let him die—if he killed him—Sam and Mary would never forgive him.  He’d never forgive himself. But the guilt would pale in comparison to the grief.  To the gaping hole Dean’s absence would leave behind.

He pushed harder, past the confines of his vessel, reaching and clawing for any wisp of light he could find.  To strike it like a match and spread it onto kindling. There wasn’t much—mostly smoke and dying embers—but it would have to be enough.

He brought it forward, feeling the way his vessel struggled against it.  His muscles stretched and ached, and it felt like his skin was being flayed.  But he pushed on.

He opened his eyes and saw only light, blinding and radiant.  He pushed on.

He heard Dean screaming.  He pushed on.

He kept it up for as long as he could, feeling his grace stitching Dean’s flesh back together, wiping the wound clean of blood.  He lent all the strength he had to it. He kept on until the match extinguished himself. It felt like a thin, taut cord he’d been pulling on snapped.

He passed out.

 

///

 

When Castiel woke up, bright rays of sunlight were peeking in through the cracks in the bedroom’s thick curtains.  Consciousness came to him slowly, like he were drifting towards it without a current to push him. It felt different than waking up from his usual sleep.   _He_ felt different—smaller somehow, but heavy.

No, not heavy.   _Rooted_.

His limbs didn’t feel like weights around him.  His body wasn’t restricted of movement. It was the opposite, actually.  He was aware of the soft mattress hugging his back and the pillow cradling his head.  There was an itch on his ankle and a pain in his temple where he must have hit his head when he fainted. He twitched his fingers, trying to orient himself in his vessel, but found he didn’t need to.  The way his body reacted was seamless, autonomic. There wasn’t any disconnect at all. 

The disconnect came in other ways.  He could no longer feel their height above sea level, couldn’t hear the subtle background noise of the earth’s rotation.  Couldn’t sense the subatomic particles that made up the air. Couldn’t feel his wings.

Rooted.  He was no longer a creature of the sky.  He belonged to the earth.

He blinked his eyes open with a soft groan, and there was an immediate shifting from the window.  “Hey, hey,” Dean soothed as he came over to the bed, sitting on the edge of it. His hands shot out as Castiel sat upright, as if ready to catch him if he fell.  Without a prompt, Dean reached over to the nightstand and produced a glass of water. The liquid inside had gone flat with bubbles, but Castiel didn’t care. He was suddenly aware of how dry his throat was, how swampy his mouth tasted.  In some ways, this new state of being was sensory overload. He thought he’d been easing into it gradually over the last few weeks, but the final descent had been like falling off a cliff. 

Dean lifted the glass of water to Castiel’s lips and tipped it forward.  Castiel’s hands went up to grip the glass at its base as he gulped down half the contents, and then pushed it away when he needed to catch his breath.  He felt better now, more refreshed.

But that didn’t matter.  His eyes were on Dean. Dean—who was alive and on his feet.  Castiel had healed him. “Dean,” he choked out when he had enough air to do so.

“Yeah, I know,” Dean said.  He placed the glass down on the nightstand with a gentle clunk.  Then, he lifted up his shirt to show the spot where Castiel’s blade pierced him.  The area was gashed with a thick red line, the blood clotted like a very old wound.  The skin around it was slightly bruised and irritated, but looked a lot better than Castiel had imagined.  Still, he winced. To know he’d caused Dean pain, to know he’d marked him with another scar, weighed on him.

“You managed to get it down from _life-threatening_ to _stings like a bitch_.”  Dean let his shirt fall back down. He gave a smile that did nothing for the shame welling in Castiel’s gut.  He could hardly look at Dean in the eyes. 

“Dean, I’m sorry.  I—.” 

“No.  Hey,” Dean said, his hand coming up to rest on Castiel’s shoulder.  “I should’a listened to you, Cas. We could have gotten to the bottom of this days ago, but I was being an ass.  Next time, I’ll pay more attention.” There was a pause, and then, “So, you really think it’s your grace that’s making you see all that crap?”

Castiel sighed, the shame spreading through him like boiling water.  He nodded shallowly. “It was. But it’s over now, Dean. My grace is gone.”

Dean blinked, shock lifting his bows to his hairline.  “What d’you mean, gone?”

“I spent it in my attempt to heal you.”  And it was worth it. To see Dean in one piece, Castiel would have given his own life, not just his grace.  “There may still be traces of it,” like droplets on the window after a rainstorm, “but I can’t feel it. Maybe it’ll regenerate in time, when— _if_ heaven reopens. But for now—,” he shrugged, because what else could he do?  “I’m mortal.”

Dean flexed his jaw and looked down.  “Shit, Cas. I’m—Shit.” He was blaming himself, Castiel realized.  He was apologizing.

Castiel quickly reached up and folded his hand over Dean’s on his shoulder.  He squeezed at Dean’s fingers, grounding both of them. “Don’t. I much prefer having you to my grace.”  He managed a weak smile to show it, and Dean returned it when he peered back up. He leaned in and kissed Castiel chastely.

They laid down together, neither of them planning on getting out of bed until at least the early afternoon.  Castiel told himself it was because they both needed rest, but that was only half of the reason. After nearly losing him, Castiel wanted to be close to Dean.  Dean wanted to be near him. It felt as if they’d been doing this for years—holing up together after a hunt, or an apocalypse, or any number of close calls, just to lay together in silent promises that they’d never leave one another. 

He wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist, careful to avoid the wound, and rested his head on his shoulder.  Dean’s chin hooked itself on the top of Castiel’s head, the tips of his fingers tickling his back over his shirt.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean wondered after a few minutes, “if your grace was on its last leg, how’d you heal me, anyway?”

Castiel considered it.  He hadn’t really thought about it in the moment.  He’d just acted. The fear of losing Dean, the need to save him, overcame everything else.  The fiery band of his grace burning through him had been nothing compared to his love. 

“I don’t know,” he admitted.  “I was panicked, and terrified of losing you.  It was the only thought in my mind. Everything else just fell away.”

Dean gave a little “huh” sound, and said, “Kinda like that freaky adrenaline thing when soccer moms lift minivans off their kids.” 

Castiel narrowed his eyes at the analogy, but perhaps it was apt.  That phenomenon was such a human thing and he was, in fact, human now.  He looked up at Dean and said gravely, “Yes. I was like a soccer mom.” 

Dean snorted out a laugh and Castiel didn’t know why, but it was nice to see, anyway.  He felt his own lips tugging upward.

“All right, well, I told Sammy I’d give him a call when you were up and at ‘em again,” Dean said, and there was a slight note of finality in his voice.  “Told him we were gonna head back to the bunker today.” It hadn’t been posed as a question, but it was one. 

Castiel turned away again, thinking.  Dean was leaving this up to him. And part of him wanted to leave the house, to put all this behind him, even if his grace couldn’t conjure a haunting anymore.  But they weren’t done here. There was still plenty of work left and, besides, they needed to finish their “honeymoon,” as Dean had called it. Perhaps, now, it could be wholly enjoyable. 

Maybe that was a selfish thought, but he wanted to keep Dean to himself for a little while longer.

“What d’you say?” Dean asked expectantly.

Castiel wasn’t sure how he was going to answer until he inhaled to speak.

 

///

 

Maybe it had been foolish to stay.  Castiel certainly thought so at first, and regret about his decision almost made him change his mind.  But the unease soon lifted from him like a cloud of smoke and he learned, without his grace, the house was just as innocuous as any.  It was even better than any house, in fact, with Dean by his side.

Less than a week later, they were pulling up into the bunker’s garage, a few boxes worth of records and books in the trunk and backseat.  They only took what they thought would be useful to have close. The rest of it was organized and locked back into the house, and Castiel knew its doors probably wouldn’t stay closed for another eighty years this time. 

Dean put the Impala into park and killed the engine, but his hands were still gripping the steering wheel.  He’d been quiet for the last couple of hours of the drive, giving off a nervous energy. Castiel didn’t know why, but he was content to let Dean take his time telling him.  He didn’t want to pressure him, and besides, Castiel had lost himself in silent reflection, as well. 

He considered what they were heading back to—home, crowded and abundant with hunters.  He and Dean would hardly have a second alone for some time, which he mourned after their recent trip. Perhaps this had been more of a honeymoon than he’d previously considered. 

Nevertheless, they were returning to their usual routine.  Except, Castiel wasn’t his normal self anymore. His new humanity suddenly seemed permanent—real, now that he was home.  It had followed him from the house, down the mountain, and across the many miles. It was staying. And he was surprisingly okay with it.  He found himself missing his alone time with Dean more than his grace.

Once the car was off, Castiel lingered momentarily, wanting to soak up the last of the quiet, the last of Dean’s company.  But it couldn’t last forever, so he opened the door and made to get out.

And then Dean said, “Hang on.  Cas?”

Castiel swiveled around to look back at him.  Dean was still looking forward, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.  He’d wanted to say something all day, and they both knew this was his last chance.  The moment they joined the others, the mood would shift. Dean would rebury whatever had been exhumed this last week.  Castiel didn’t want that. Not yet. He enjoyed the openness between them. 

“I wanna talk,” he said haltingly, his throat working like it was trying to shut him up, “about everything that happened—you know, with Michael.” 

Castiel wasn’t sure if Dean wanted to have the discussion right now, or if he was speaking in general terms.  But Castiel straightened out in his seat and closed the door again. He looked at Dean attentively.

“But I got no idea where to start, man,” Dean went on.  “So, I can’t. Yet. I just need some time.”

Castiel felt a strange mix of disappointment and relief.  At least Dean was saying something honest. He was grateful for the trust Dean placed in his for that alone.  He wouldn’t rush him. “It’s okay, Dean. Take all the time you need.”

Dean closed his eyes, a muscle in his jaw jumping.  He nodded. “Thanks.” And then, “I don’t know why he bailed, or where he is.  But all I can think about is—what’s stopping him from coming back?”

He looked at Castiel then, eyes wide and childlike, as if expecting him to provide an answer.  And Castiel had one. “Me,” he said, and remembered his hands. They no longer had power flowing through them, but it didn’t matter.  He would make them break and bleed for Dean if he needed to. And he knew he wasn’t alone in that sentiment. “All of us. Your family, Dean.” 

Dean softened at that, and for a second he looked overwhelmed by gratitude.  “You’re right,” he sighed. “I just gotta remind myself that I’m here. And that all you guys are here, too.  Sammy and Mom and Jack and Bobby. You’re here. It helps.”

Castiel offered him a disarming smile.  “I’m glad I can provide some semblance of comfort.”

“You do, babe.”  Dean was smiling now, too, and he leaned in to peck a kiss to Castiel’s lips, and Castiel met him in the middle.   When it broke, he stayed close, hovering in Castiel’s space. It was strange, how accustomed Castiel had become to that in such a short time—or maybe it hadn’t been such a short time at all.  They’d been standing too close for years; he was just happy Dean had long given up on protesting about it.

Distantly, the door that led into the bunker clamored open, and he heard Sam’s shout muffled by the car and few feet of distance.  “Hey, guys? You back? Thought I heard the garage door.”

Dean remained still for half a second longer before pulling away and getting out of the car.  Sam must have seen the Impala, because he hadn’t waited for an answer. He was already hustling down the concrete stairs and walking over, his long legs taking him in quick strides.  He was besides Dean’s elbow in no time.

“Hey,” Dean said gruffly, some of his walls already building back up.  He closed the driver’s door behind him.

“Hello, Sam,” Castiel greeted from over the hood of the car.

Sam was looking at them expectantly.  “So? You find anything?” 

Dean sighed, his shoulders dropping into it, and eyed Castiel.  Castiel returned the look before answering, “If you’re referring to a way to track down an archangel and kill him, then no.” 

Sam slackened, momentarily rendered hapless.  Dean couldn’t stand to see it any more than Castiel could—maybe more so.  He reached out and clapped his brother on the shoulder. “But maybe we missed something,” he said cheerfully, trying to raise Sam’s spirits.  They hadn’t missed anything and he knew it, but Sam perked up a little. “We’ll keep looking. Bound to find something eventually.”

Sam nodded with renewed vigor.  “Yeah.” And then with more certainty, “Yeah, you’re right.” 

After a pause, Sam turned his attention to Castiel, eyes round and impassioned. “Cas, listen man, about your grace—.”

“It’s okay, Sam. I don’t need any pity.” His eyes slid to Dean reflectively as he said, “I don’t regret my choice.” Dean didn’t turn around, but Castiel saw him look down at his shoes as the corner of his lips tugged upwards. It was a small blush, and it only furthered Castiel’s outlook on his decision. 

“Anyway, soup’s on if you’re hungry,” Sam said.  “Might wanna get it before everyone else eats it all.” 

“Ah-ha, nice,” Dean said, brightening in earnest.  “I’m starving.”

“You two go ahead,” Castiel told them.  He wanted at least one more moment of quiet before the rest of his mortal life began.  “I’ll unpack the car and catch up with you.” 

He stayed still for a few moments after that, watching the brothers walk towards the door shoulder to shoulder, talking to one another.  He found himself smiling after them. If he was to grow old and die like any human, he was glad the years in between would be filled with such a sight.

He went to the trunk, a zap of static shocking his fingers as he touched the metal.  He hissed, more at the unexpectedness of it than the pain. Despite Dean’s claims that this happened frequently as the weather got colder, he still thought he’d never get used to it.

Tentatively, he put his hand back on the car, the bundle of nerves in his chest settling when nothing happened.  He heard the door into the bunker open and close again as he leaned down and stuck his head into the trunk. Three boxes were at the front of the trunk, and Castiel pushed them to the side to get to his and Dean’s duffle bags.  Dean was probably planning on getting his after dinner, but Castiel thought he’d take it in now. He would have to take a few trips for the boxes, anyway, and he considered enlisting Jack’s help for the task.

He put his duffle over his shoulder and picked Dean’s up by the straps before starting to the door.  Without Sam and Dean’s voices, the garage was silent. His footfalls echoed back to him against the high concrete walls.  It wasn’t until he was trudging up the stairs, did he notice someone standing near a row of cars along the far wall. It surprised him at first, like the static had, until he saw who it was.

“Dean.”  He had his back to Castiel.  “What are you doing? I thought you went inside with Sam.”  He was sure he’d heard the door close, but maybe Dean had stayed behind.  But why wouldn’t he have said anything? And why hadn’t Castiel seen him before?

And why wasn’t he answering?

Something cold and black pooled in Castiel’s gut.  The skin on the back of his neck prickled.

“Dean?” 

Slowly, Dean’s head began to tilt to the left.

 

**END.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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